This pairing of a nasally voiced indie rocker from the Northeast
with a collection of New Orleans musicians has yielded a strange
hybrid, like alienation finding a solid footing.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah singer, songwriter and guitarist Alec
Ounsworth journeyed to the Crescent City with producer Steve Berlin,
who assembled an all-star band of George Porter Jr. on bass, Stanton
Moore on drums, Robert Walter on keys and Matt Sutton on baritone and
pedal-steel guitars.
Mo Beauty may be missing the hooks and boundless enthusiasm
that drove Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s self-titled debut, but after the
weak follow-up Some Loud Thunder, this solo record is a welcome
leap in a more ambitious direction.
At times rambunctious, Mo Beauty opens with the chunky
junkyard stomp of “Modern Girl (… With Scissors),” perhaps showing
some previously buried Tom Waits aspirations in Ounsworth’s somewhat
scattered musical vision.
Album closer “When You’ve No Eyes” has the swirling atmospheric
sound that suggests the shimmering production that another New Orleans
resident, Daniel Lanois, has lent to U2, Peter Gabriel and Emmylou
Harris.
While this “solo” debut finds Ounsworth sounding comfortable and
more accomplished as a singer-songwriter, the band is so
excellent—flawless, really—that the album’s only weak spots
come from Ounsworth himself. It’s almost enough to begin wondering if
this tremendously skilled New Orleans crew could make a great-sounding
record with practically anybody.
This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2009.
