Little Known Gems # Mock Tudor : R.Thompson

Few musical charms compare with those of Richard Thompson's better albums. Mock Tudor easily ranks amongst them, thanks in part to inventive producers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, who help strike a melodious balance between Thompson's genre-hopping instrumental subtleties and the gritty rave-ups that characterize his full-flail live shows.

Together again with Fairport drummer Dave Mattacks and bassist Danny Thompson (and with help on guitar and vocals from son Teddy), Thomspon is set free. A literate songwriter and fearlessly talented guitarist, Richard Thompson is also a complete bust when it comes to romance. Or so Mock Tudor, which details love gone wrong from an early age to present, suggests over and over.

Fortunately, Thompson makes his troubles worth our concern, thanks to his mix of wounded perseverance ("Dry My Tears and Move On") and all-out bile (the vindictive but ultimately self-destructive "Hope You Like the New Me").Thompson views love as a kind of perceptual problem: How can you trust what's in front of your eyes when you've so often been deceived - and been a deceiver?

There's a delightful, modal minisolo on "Sibella"; "Uninhabited Man" finds the former student of Sufism holding down a Led Zep-ish Eastern groove; and every other song is a subtle, midtempo, sure-fire hit in an alternate universe. Lyrically, Thompson sticks to dark-side-of-the-street subject matter; the majority of the songs describe a relationship gone over the edge or about to (Elvis Costello is Thompson's only peer when it comes to charming, post-Dylan misanthropy in song).

Women are goddesses ("Cooksferry Queen"), a bad match ("Sibella," "Two-Faced Love"), evil temptresses ("Bathsheba Smiles," "Hard on Me"), and about to dump the protagonist any second now ("Crawl Back Under My Stone")--and that's just the first six songs! In "Cooksferry Queen" when Thompson sings, "People speak my name in whispers--what higher praise can there be," the singer-songwriter might well be describing himself.

Well Sample these words from closing track from the album 'Hope You like the new Me' you know what we talking about - apparently a dig at our commercialized music industry and piracy

I stole your style / Hope you don't mind/ I must try to be all I can be/It suits me more/ Than it ever suited you/ Hope you like the new me/I stole your laugh / So bright and breezy / It stops parties in mid-air/It makes me feel more devil-may-care/ Hope you like the new me

We all need friends to lean on / Any time, any place, anywhere / Feel free to lean on me/But please don't do it right now/ Yes I'm much too busy right now /I stole your walk / The one with purpose /That says there is no mountain I can't climb/It fools people all of the time/ Hope you like the new me

I stole your jokes / Just the good ones/ How the gang all laughed with glee/I also stole The way that you tell them /Hope you like the new me /To steal is to flatter / What a compliment to pay /All those things that I stole from you/Well I might give them back someday /Yes I really might someday

I stole your wife / Hope you don't mind / She was looking bored don't you think/I'll soon have her back in the pink /Stop by and see us for tea /I stole your soul /When you weren't looking/I reached inside and cut it free/It suits me more /Than it ever suited you/Hope you like the new me

Thompson’s simply profound way with words, backed here by hand-stitched phrasing that decorates every sweetly seeping and Celtically inclined note. How can something that must have hurt so bad sound so good?

The difficulty of recognizing the real thing, of course, has implications for the fate of the wryly titled Mock Tudor, as well -- implications that Richard Thompson will no doubt ignore as he goes on making spellbinding music for whoever cares to hear it.