RICHARD THOMPSON “DREAM ATTIC” Review

RICHARD THOMPSON “DREAM ATTIC”
By Rick Zeigler

Dream Attic is that rarest of beasts—a live album showcasing completely new material.
Not only that, you can barely tell that it IS a live album. There is little applause (a few fadeouts at the end of some songs), no stage banter, and no whoops & hollers from the audience. So why put out a live album that barely seems to be live? The answer is in the performances, which feature some of Thompson’s finest electric guitar work on record in the last thirty years. And that is saying something, for Thompson has long been one of rock’s finest guitar players. From his beginnings in Fairport Convention to his work with ex-wife Linda through to his monumental solo catalogue, Thompson has become a legend (at least in England) for his guitar abilities, be it acoustic or electric. But when recording new material over the last number of albums, Thompson has rarely let himself stretch out on his chosen instrument, focusing instead on putting across the melodies and lyrics of his storytelling. Dream Attic, however, is a somewhat different story. Recorded over three nights at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, the storytelling is still present and accounted for. The album’s opener, “The Money Shuffle,” is Thompson’s acerbic take on the world’s recent financial turmoils, “Sidney Wells” is his latest contribution to the canon of English folk/murder ballads, and “Here Comes Geordie” is a jaunty, uptempo jig satirizing Sting’s pompousness (though the object of the song remains unnamed). Indeed, Thompson’s songwriting is as strong as ever, with no dregs among the thirteen selections on offer. And with the presence of Joel Zifkin on electric violin and Pete Zorn on a variety of (sometimes intrusive) saxophones, even the sololess cuts contain nice interplay between these instruments and Thompson’s guitar work. But make no mistake, the focus of Dream Attic is certainly on those songs on which Thompson takes off on his electric. The rocking “Haul Me Up,” is the first such cut on offer, wherein some nice violin and a catchy chorus gives way to a blazing solo that circles around the various melodies within the song. “Crimescene” starts off as a soft, slow ballad about another relationship gone sour, but eventually builds into a extended, hard-charging guitar trip into the darkness. The aforementioned “Sidney Wells” contains a beautiful electric solo that completely maintains the song’s English folk ambience, and album closer “If Love Whispers Your Name,” although slow of tempo, achieves a startling intensity during Thompson’s extended riffing. Well into his FIFTH DECADE as a performer, on Dream Attic Thompson shows that he, himself, is that rarest of beasts—the mature artist who can still spin out excellent new material and accompany it with absolutely riveting musical performances.

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