David Bowie, Black Star (Columbia)
The most poignant, and perceptive, comments on social media when Bowie's death was announced, were from those who had listened most carefully to the album that was released on his 69th birthday last week. Thank you to broadcaster Matthew Sweet and regular Herald contributor, Graeme Thomson for sending some us to tear the shrink-wrap from the disc that had not yet made it to the player.
It is the final track I Can't Give Everything Away that will stand as Bowie's epitaph and last utterance: Seeing more and feeling less/Saying no and meaning yes/This is all I ever meant/That's the message that I sent/I can't give everything away.
Those lyrics are married to the loveliest tune on an album that is a challenging listen for those who only know the Greatest Hits, but it is indeed transparent that they are the words of an artist saying farewell.
But while Bowie's 2013 comeback The Next Day acknowledged his past, Black Star is the work of an artist facing the future. His genius for identifying collaborators throughout his career here teams him with a jazz group led by saxophonist Donny McCaslin, foregrounding the instrument Bowie started with himself for the first time since David Sanborn played on Young Americans in 1975.
With Tony Visconti in the co-producer's chair, Black Star is unmistakably a Bowie album, but with its own fresh sound-world from the multi-faceted opening title track to the single, Lazarus, referencing his new Broadway show, and reworking of his collaboration with jazz composer Maria Schneider, Sue (Or In A Season of Crime).
It might eventually stand as his most original statement for 35 years, but typically Bowie has left us plenty to argue about.
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