Steven Lindsay - Kite

  by John Clarkson

published: 7 / 6 / 2007

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“I’m givin’up the ghost again” croons Steven Lindsay against a crescendoing backdrop of horns and strings on ‘Put Up the Flag’, one of the opening tracks on his sublime new album ‘Kite’. And then towards its end on the symphonic ‘Giving Up the Ghost’, he sings the direct opposite, the mantra “I’m not giving up the ghost/I’m not giving up the ghost.” Lindsay is singing predominantly about a love affair, throwing caution to the wind and everything down for it, and then when it is all over picking oneself up and finding the strength and hope to carry on, but he could also be singing about his own musical career. Steven Lindsay was the front man with the under rated Glaswegian group Big Dish, who recorded three albums of epic-sounding pop, ‘Swimmer’, ‘Creeping Up on Jesus’ and ‘Satellites’ in the late 80’s and early 90’s. After the Big Dish broke up, former art student Lindsay spent several years in and out of music writing soundtracks for television before returning in 2004 with his first vocal album in 13 years and debut solo album, the little-heard but critically-acclaimed ‘Exit Music’ which he released on his own Seminal Records. On the surface it seems that with ‘Kite’ that Lindsay has made a return to the big budget days of the Big Dish, which found his band on Virgin and then Warner Brothers and working with both composer Craig Armstrong and with string orchestras. ‘Kite’ is being released on Echo, an offshoot of the high profile Chrysalis Group, and as it proclaims on the sleeve Lindsay is appearing “with the sound of the Starlight strings and horns”. It is, however, a very different offering. While the Big Dish was a guitar band, ‘Kite’, like ‘Exit Music’, is a piano album and was recorded largely at home. The Starlight strings and horns, rather than being as it name implies a multi-piece orchestra, is in fact a computer programme through which Lindsay has added layers and textures of colour to his tender and minimalistic piano. While ‘Exit Music’ was a break up album and there is element of that too on ‘Kite’, it is, with its gorgeous soundscapes and rolls of ethereal pop, rather than being about mourning the end of the affair, more about moving on, grabbing at hope and, however temporarily, finding the means to escape both from oneself and the world at large. Lindsay makes frequent reference in his lyrics to “the moon”, “the clouds”, “rainbows” and ‘the stars”, and the track listing includes titles such as ‘Skywriter’ and ‘Catch a Star’. A cover of the Pixies’ ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’ is thrown in early, and, far removed from the abrasive, bass-heavy original, is reworked as a stark piano ballad, with a soft undercurrent of strings. On the breezy and echoing ‘Metropolis’, upon which Lindsay adds a jangling guitar riff to the piano and electronica, he imagines floating calmly high above and away from the city as its day-to-day madnesses unfold far beneath him (“The airships gliding by hide the moonlight/the actor’s learning his lines for opening night/and the show must go on tonight”). The title track meanwhile pushes rollicking thrusts of horns to the fore and finds Lindsay asking “Can somebody close their eyes and make it go away…tonight” before again escaping into a world of dreams (“Nobody wants to call the tune/Might as well fly a kite and sail up to the moon/Maybe we all could come along/I’m taking a long way round tonight/So come on and help me fly a kite"). In the wrong hands, this could all come across as horribly twee and pretentious, but one is left throughout with the impression that Lindsay is well aware of the fact that the real world is awaiting his return, and that whatever peace he has found through fantasy it is only short-term. When he enigmatically whispers at the end of the chiming penultimate and last vocal track ‘Light Sleep’ “the empty dance hall fills itself with light/through from the other side/through from the other side”, it shines through that any comfort and renewed hope that he has created for himself, and any refuge out of misery and into something more positive, has been hard fought and earned. ‘Kite’ is both beautiful-sounding and heartfelt, and heralds the return of an under-acknowledged but major talent.

Track Listing:-

1 Hairshirt
2 Put Up the Flag
3 Skywriter
4 Monkey Gone to Heaven
5 The Flood
6 Kite
7 Metropolis
8 Catch a Star
9 Deep
10 Giving Up the Ghost
11 A Memory
12 Light Sleep
13 Motorcade

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