Few albums in recent years have been so adept at aping the sound of early 70s Laurel Canyon as Jonathan Wilson’s aptly titled Gentle Spirit. It suggested that the singer-songwriter liked nothing more than lying in a hammock, a cannabis cloud above him, staring at the stars. Not so. His third solo LP proves that he’s more complicated than his hippy persona intimates, its widescreen ambition revealing his kinship with Roger Waters, whose band he joined last year. Notably, there are drum machines and synthesisers, giving parts of Rare Birds an 80s art-rock feel, plus a newfound fondness for the space between the notes. Loving You underlines Wilson’s regard for the shape-shifting one-off Arthur Russell, while the drowsy, celestial 49 Hair Flips graphically dissects an old relationship.
It would be misleading, though, to pretend that Wilson has severed his ties with soft rock. At times, as on the anodyne Living With Myself, he is a little too soft for his own good. But Rare Birds is sprawling, rich and, by and large, a triumph, its cosmic mindset and focus on detail breathing drama into songs that in lesser hands might sound stale.
