Here

Here is a simple beautiful, dignified album about a man who's in love. Dropping for the most part, his gunslinger guitar pyrotechnics, Here sees Belew stripping back the noise...and upping the songwriting, often delivering songs of poignance and distinction.

Adrian Belew: Here

But of course, if you don't believe in this troubador's salvation through Love, then Here will come across as:

• Disney inspirational, at best or
• just crap   

...though I'm hoping that, either way, you'll still give the album a listen. What you get is a one-man-band extraordinaire (O.K. Adrian's drumming isn't stellar but it's not bad)...at the top of his game...with a superb album that's delicate, sophisticated...and virtually unknown.  

Here opens with two love songs, each describing different aspects of the silver bullet  that hit Adrian right between the eyes, when he'd made the decision to divorce his wife...and shortly after met a new woman:

"...On
May 1, 1990
Something changed inside me
And I
saw the stars align
And I knew that it was...
...Meant to be..."

       May 1 1990

Part 2 is I See You...Away on the David Bowie Sound & Vision tour, Adrian thinks of his girl with innocent obsession...and puts those thoughts to a tune that's criminally catchy, bordering on bubblegum.

If I See You had been released by a group of handsome youths with guitars and cheeky smiles, pre-pubescent girls all over the world would have been kissing their pictures every night just before they cuddled their teddy bears to sleep...                                    

"...Only a week ago today
I jumped on a plane and flew away
I see you
Everywhere I go...

And as I sat beside the Seine
A boat went past and I saw you wave
I see you
Everywhere I go..."

                  I See You

I See You

And then Belew returns to unfinished business with Survival In The Wild. As documented on his two previous albums:

• Young Lions &
• Inner Revolution  

Belew had been to Hell and back with his ex-wife and Survival is just one of two for her, (the other is the Nilsson-like Dream Life) conjuring The Beatles Rubber Soul album with big strumming acoustic guitars and Sitar 101 doodlings. The lyrics are a bit hard to handle after following 10 years of Mr. B's marital woes but the sound is great:

"...Just a couple of kids with clouds in our heads
Trying to swim upstream, trying to make it good
But it happened so fast when disaster came
That a river of teardrops couldn't wash it away..."

                      Survival In The Wild

Belew then brings the album to a virtual standstill with the almost psychedelic Fly, about his fear of flying, introducing the Japanese Koto for incidental atmosphere..

"...Fly happens to be my personal favorite (on the album). It began as a little one minute idea that I had on the dobro, and I just immediately came downstairs and started recording it and wrote it all at once, instead of belaboring it like I usually have to do. And it turned into a five-minute piece with all these tape loops and wonderful GR-1 sounds and a lot of interesting things in it that really created exactly the atmosphere that I wanted, which is somewhere between the pleasure and the tension of flying, because flying, for me, is an awful experience (laughs)..."  interview snippet from keneally.com (see below)

Slamming out of the meditation of Fly, it's Bam!...straight into Belew Guitar Heaven with Never Enough, bass and drums munching up your resistance like Pac-Man 2 (in 1995, that was a pretty cool game!). Damn! the Amazon snippet doesn't seem to capture any of the raunch of this over-testosterone-d stomp...you're just going to have to believe me, it rocks!

However, a pensive observation colors much of the album...and Belew drops Lust (or, at least, obsessive affection) for graver thoughts with Peace On Earth.

"...It takes me a long time to decide on lyrics and sometimes I'm attempting to nail something that might have a timeless quality about it. Like Peace On Earth; I think that that's a song that will always be relevant because the things that are said will always be true and that's a really difficult song to write. It's kind of like attempting to write Imagine (laughs). ...I don't think it's in the same league with that, but..." interview snippet from keneally.com (see below)

"...The day is blue, there's nothing to do but
Watch the sad review of Life going by...
...Turn on the news, the killing continues
And there but for The Grace of God go I...
...All the desperate people clinging to their greed
While all the lonely people close their eyes to dream

...We're living in a world of hurt...
...While all the children pray
For peace
On
Earth..."

                Peace On Earth

The title track, Here is the other side to the froth of I See You, a psychedelic, mystical dreamy dramatisation of the meeting of two souls at the right place, at the right time...backward guitars, you can almost smell the incense and hear the Tibetan bells... 

"...I've come a million miles to be with you
I swam across the sky
Here I am..."

                Here 

Perhaps the only hard-to-recommend track is the well intentioned Brave New World...

"...I think there are good and bad points to technology, and I wanted to point out some of the astounding, good things about it. It's still very impressive to me that I can stick a little piece of paper in a fax machine, and seventeen seconds later it's in England..." interview snippet from keneally.com (see below)

...unfortunately, because the title, Brave New World is one of the great anti-utopian novels, you keep thinking that it's a satire...when it's not meant to be. Well, at least Adrian didn't call it 1984!

The harshest track on the album is Future Vision, an apocalyptic view of er...today. 

"...Red for the angry young skinhead
With the gun stuck down his pants
And his hand wrapped around a gasoline can

Blue, for the cruel, nude tattoo
With a dagger slashing a heart in two
And the words: 'I'm cool, so screw you', yeah

I hope we can see there's more than one side
I hope they can see there's no such thing as race
Just a human race
I hope we can see the world is not black and white

What A future vision..."

                      Future Vision

                              Adrian Belew Trio LIVE snippet 2006

                                                     Future Vision

And that's kinda the end of this remarkable album. There are two tracks that follow, Hidden Track, a brief Fripp-like instrumental and Postcard From Holland. At one level, the latter is a dreadful song, there's no internal balance, no cohesion, no real need for you to listen to it...and it ends the album with a whimper. On the other hand, though, Postcard's is also a letter from one lover to another, it's their private jokes, their secret language...and then you realise that that's why it works!

N.B.: You must read Adrian's blog entry about the actual Postcard From Holland which was used to make the track...and then was the basis for his rather good painting. 

You can also purchase the original musical demo of Postcard From Holland by clicking on STORE Belew at Adrian's blog...on the top right hand side.

While May 1 1990, is a song that speaks to the optimist in all of us...Postcard speaks to and for no-one else...but implies that if you want a May 1 1990, you'd better be prepared to live a Postcard From Holland. If you like, it's the price of Romance and that little lesson in Love is more powerful than a truckload of Celine Dion albums.

My advice is to buy Here. It doesn't get much better than this. 

Adrian Belew: Here

"...Adrian Belew is one of the best guitarists alive. He doesn't play at impossibly high speeds, he doesn't write self-indulgent finger exercises that would only appeal to a limited few and he doesn't have a contract with Ibanez. What he DOES do, however, is write wonderful melodic tunes...he writes lyrics that can be both beautiful and confusing and he can definitely play with soul. This album...shows how talented and amazingly moving his music can be..." Amazon.com reviewer Brandon Stanley

"...Here (is) in many ways...a mix between Belew's more experimental and varied leanings and his love of good pop...In the middle of this, he constructs a bunch of songs filled with delicate beauty...(It) is a fantastic, unique and varied record, certainly one of Belew's most accessible and one of his best. Highly recommended..." Amazon.com reviewer Michael Stack

"...His Absolute Best: On Here, Belew not only shows his expertise as one of the most thoughtful, versatile, and inventive songwriters of our time but also is able to display his wide sonic capabilities, playing:

• guitar
• bass
• drums
• keyboards
• cello &
• koto

...among other sundry instruments. Although it may not be his most adventurous album to date, it is truly his most listenable effort I have found..." Amazon.com reviewer DL, Music Teacher