When I put on New Cottee’s new album Broken Flowers, the threatening thunders turned down into a true downpour. A bit symbolic, I guess, since Cottee is from Manchester and wanted to run away from the gloomy weather and ended up in India for a time to prepare this album. I have no idea whether he wanted to make a perfect cross between Lambchop and Tindersticks, but by my criteria, he got pretty, pretty close.
Preparing the album, he went to record it in Whales with Mason Neely. Just so happens that Neely produced Lambchop, among others. What we get here is an album that ranges from the quiet generated by a summer heat and the quiet that ensues after the summer thundershowers. Cottee’s voice is exactly a shade lighter than either Kurt Wagner’s or Stuart Stapleton”s but still able to conjure all the plaintive images in his lyrics. He and Neely set the songs to almost perfect arrangements, light pedal steel’s and guitars and a lot of subdued string arrangements.
The sonic and lyrical images Cottee brings are quite dark, something quiet summer days can push away and heavy thunderstorm nights strengthen. In a way, Cottee can also be compared to compatriots and nightbirds Richard Hawley and Duke Garwood, sharing both, Hawley’s romanticism in a way, and Garwood’s penchant for darker corners of the street. All is encapsulated in When The Night Comes, Cottee’s baritone accompanied by subtle backing female vocals, almost jarring surf guitar and a keyboard backdrop almost akin to Timmy Thomas’ Why Can’t We Live Together.
It is hard though to pick a standout title on the album though which runs down as one great atmospheric piece. Actually, it is easy to say that this album, with its quiet, gentle, but at the same time brooding atmosphere punches a thunder akin to that summer thunderstorm. Demands multiple plays, particularly late at night.
