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I have to admit it: I envy this man. Firstly, because he is handsome, but with a reassuring kind of beauty, not the typical reckless rocker or pretentious Brit popper. Then, there's his hair: it’s wavy yet disciplined, while mine are as straight as nails and as disobedient as stray dogs. When they grow out, they create a mane at the back, which even Carmelo Zappulla would envy… Then there’s his skill with the guitar and his relationship with it. His is a traditional school, and a skill put at the service of songwriting, and not - as often happens - the other way around; an ability never wasted on futile showmanship, in solos that need to arrive punctually by the second minute and the forty-fourth second of every song... No guitarist at his level would, in their twenties and thirties, form a band that, from album to album, would include among its members trumpeters, saxophonists, Dublin violinists, pianists, players of accordion, harmonica, harp, in short, soloists of all kinds, ready to "steal the spotlight" from the guitar and its player.
But the thing I admire most about him is the courage to always declare himself a pagan, even though the attitude with which, in his music, he refers to the spiritual dimension, addresses the Divine, and yet his continuous wandering, his questions, the hope and his "sense of precariousness", are all specific ingredients of Christian rock.
Pagan, it was said, and to be pagan today, either you say it just for the sake of saying, or you are sure of your point. Mike Scott who, after the failure of "Dream Harder" in the United States - his residence at the time, specifically New York -, "takes refuge" (withdraws?) to Findhorn, a city-community (nothing to do with San Patrignano), on the shores of the Moray Firth, the largest in Scotland. As would be expected, it wasn’t his first time setting foot there, and he already knew what to find... There he nourishes the spirit and inspiration, reverts to the giants of music, his teachers, to his guitar and his hands; he releases a DIY embryonic album for fans titled "Sunflowers" and, the following year, in 1995, he debuts under his own name with this album.
The instruments are few, at most two guitars, sometimes a harmonica, a piano, or an Hammond... And he plays them himself. No violins, no electric pianos, zero medieval trumpets, zero saxophones, no Waterboys trademarks, in short. But neither keyboards, backup voices, choirs. And not even bass and drums, or any form, improvised or otherwise, of rhythm. Like a true folk singer, in short. The songs are impetuous, relentless, in perpetual motion, almost never resigning themselves to pass. "Animated".
Above all, the title-track, gritty and poignant, burns like seawater on a wound. A lingering pain that doesn’t want to resign itself to pass, that exhausts. In "Wonderful Disguise" Bob Dylan becomes Scottish, believes in nymphs, and goes whale hunting. Painful folk and ballad saturating the heart. "Edinburgh Castle" is a strong acoustic rock perfect for Patti Smith, the musical love of his youth, and the "girl named Johnny," in one of the songs from his very first album.
Dylan returns, more melodic and with improved interpretative abilities, in the spiritual "What Do You Want Me To Do?" (and let it not be said that Scott doesn’t have an American Christian-Protestant songwriting) and in "Learning To Love Him" (where you can imagine who this "Him" is), halfway between spiritual (without gospel choirs or organ) and a calm country, with a deliberately unfinished ending. Again the old Bob, rejuvenated, and seeing in himself the hope and joy of "torment," in "Long Way To The Light," a track which, for the writer, is to be considered the folk brother of the renowned "The Whole Of The Moon."
The Arcade Fire and its audience would like "Sensitive Children", guitar and harmonica accordion, all subdued and driving, urging you to keep time with your feet and slap your hands on anything nearby. And if "Iona Song" is an atmospheric melodrama that doesn’t take off, if "I Know She's In The Building" is a standard blues rock revolving around a single riff (it is reiterated that there is no form of percussion), "City Full Of Ghosts (Dublin)" is a convincing piano boogie ready at any moment to become real rock'n'roll. And which perhaps, for a while, actually does become that.
Shines "She's So Beautiful", a heartbreaker. And then his voice is so authentic, intense, and his subdued voice as you wish yours could be. The passionate torment doesn’t want to fade, and then, at the end of the song, a piano resonates for thirty seconds, and "Wonderful Disguise" returns. The album, which you will find around in various versions, with additions of numerous other tracks, all roughly performed in the same style, officially ends with "Building The City Of Light", with Patti Smith and the "wind rock" of the early Waterboys. Rarely have I heard an acoustic play so loudly.
Globally, it would seem that, for the folk singer who travels with the guitar on his back and the soul in a backpack, there isn't only the California beach, the desert between Mexico and Texas, the rugged rock of Big Sur, the endless plantations of Nebraska or, on this side, the Irish moorlands... There are also the Scottish fjords, there is also Findhorn, at the mouth of the river of the same name, in the Moray Firth. And there is Iona, an island in the Inner Hebrides, on the other side, a land of pilgrimages and pagan rituals. And of deities ready to rise again. In that region of the world, Mike Scott still resides today, there he celebrates the feast of life, from there he records and elevates his prayers to the sky. And there he plays his loyal guitar. Who knows how many other wonderful places there are in the world for a folk singer. Mike Scott has decided not to seek them out anymore, to stop his wandering, to settle down forever…
And what does a traveler seek, if not his home?
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