David Saw: Broken Down Figure
David Saw states he is a Broken Down Figure
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Monday, 08, Jun 2009 09:23
Iris Records, out June 8th.
In a nutshell...
Gallingly bland lo-fi plod-along
What's it all about?
With its aggravatingly twee melodies and sterile sentiment, this release from David Saw is something of a grey blur. In fact, it probably wouldn't be all that harsh to call Broken Down Figure the Stalin of quasi-British folk.
Who's it by?
Englishman Saw is a long-time musical accomplice of Ben Taylor, son of million-selling dad favourites Carly Simon and James Taylor. Taylor Jnr is now an established musician in his own right, though has taken the backseat on this one, turning his hand instead to co-producing with Larry Ciancia.
This is Saw's second full-lengther on Taylor's Iris Records, the label on which he is joined by the amusingly aptly named Pedestrian. Following his 2003 debut, Different Story, Saw struggled to make any sort of impact, and will be hoping that Broken Down Figure changes all that.
As an example...
"I love you like a simple song/You always sound the best." - Simple Song
What the others say
"Graceful, wistful and altogether soothing, Broken Down Figure is an album of real warmth and wisdom." - Caught In The Carousel
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys.
Not if God exists. Saw recently said in an interview that new single Buy My Record is "slightly ironic now, as record stores are almost redundant". It's hard not to think that the real, sad irony of the title is in fact lost on the man himself.
So is it any good?
Well, no, not really.Things start off at distinctly average, and drift on ad tedium from there. Opener Don't Call was probably written specifically to soundtrack a 'thoughtful' moment in Scrubs, such is its harmless vague simplicity. It's not terrible, just a little sickly, and so there's still some hope to be had.
However, a track on, and it all gets ugly. If there's a worse, more moronic lyric than 'I love you like a simple song/You always sound the best' then please DON'T send it in on the back of a postcard. In truth, it really is difficult to convey quite how bad Simple Song is, so I'll go for a sweeping statement instead: it is probably beaten only in the world annoyingness stakes by Ray Quinn's face/existence.
Though not quite as awful, the next track, Broken Down Figure, is probably the most emblematic of this record, and not just because of the shared title. The line "It's so obvious/Why can't you tell?" sums up pretty much everything you're going to hear through the next seven tracks.
The production is stripped to next to nothing, which would be absolutely fine if there was any substance to anything offered here. Indeed, this is so inoffensive that it actually becomes offensive. The intermittent strings are probably meant to be heart-rending and lachrymose, though in reality they simply serve up a blissful lull from the wispy inanity of Saw's vocals. In case you hadn't got it, this is getting pretty bloody terrible.
Things seem to pick up slightly with lead single Buy My Record, which pulls off a slightly more honky-tonky washboard charm than the mind-numbingly dreary fayre that comes before it. Still, this is not going to get anyone dancing around the room, and before one can even get their foot tapping the tempo is duly dropped back down to the comatose trudge of Savannah's World. The more this goes on, the more Saw's achingly dull refrains bring to mind a crap Shins on boring juice; an aural Cash in the Attic, if you will. Jack Johnson must be soaking his pants in trepidation.
It would, of course, be unfair to completely focus on the negatives here. Plenty of people will like Broken Down Figure for its lazy summertime saunter and airy sentiment, and that's fine. It's just that those people will be the sorts that think Radiohead should re-record The Bends, or will say, "yeah, I went to see the Toploader comeback gig last night. I only went cause my mate got me a ticket, but actually they were pretty good y'know!"
After listening to this, it really would be great to know what David Saw did to 'wow' his label into giving him a publishing deal. Maybe he's a master origamist, or perhaps he can recite every stop on the Jubilee line in both directions. Or possibly it's that Iris Records is owned by his best mate Ben Taylor, who incidentally co-produced the album (if pointing a microphone and pressing 'on' counts as production).
Who knows what convinced them? Whatever it was, it certainly can't have been any of these songs.
3/10
Stephen Jones