TOM O.C. WILSON – Tell A Friend (Pickled Egg, UK 2017)
An album made for a PhD thesis exploring how far one can deviate from pop while still sounding pop would probably sound very strange. Yet that’s exactly what Tom Wilson did with Tell A Friend. It does sound exceedingly strange, but also singularly wonderful. “Each song explored a compositional question,” explains Tom. “But it was very important that it would still function as a pop record.”
Although born in 1983, pop to Tom basically means the Beatles. “I was listening to my parents’ record collection. But contemporary pop music was also looking back to that era,” says Tom and references bands like Blur and XTC. “My musical language was very rigorous. It was formed by an intense focus on pop craft,” he adds. “The tunefulness, that is huge for me. And a conciseness of expression,” specifies Tom, and continues: “Then at 18, I got this explosion of other influences.” Studying music at Southhampton University exposed him to everything from classical to world music. He made a couple of albums as Freeze Puppy, exploring these influences, culminating with Master’s Thesis album The Night Attendant in 2014. He then spent three years on his PhD album. “It was a session here, a session there,” says Tom. “My brother was renting a studio and kindly let us use it.”
Instrumentation on the album is intentionally traditional. “Using familiar sounds allows the listener to focus on the other aspects of the music,” explains Tom, who’s focus is clear: “The Beatles were always looking outside their own immediate language and struggling with how to incorporate that.” Tom’s explorations include abrupt melodic interventions, frequent time signature changes and extremely wordy lyrics. “I was looking for this balance between surprise and recognition of something that’s gone before,” he explains, although listeners might initially experience more of the former. ”Everyone’s gonna have a comfort level,” admits Tom. “Mine is maybe a little bit higher.”
The album’s title grounds it thematically in real life experiences with friends, such as the opening track about a friend who appreciates life more after severe illness. And the album ends with a song that puts the singer in a time loop. “It explores a setting where you’re with the person you want to be with on the kind of day you would most want to spend with them,” explains Tom. But of course there is a twist. “It ends on an unresolved chord, and then if you play the start of the album, it resolves.” says Tom, inviting the listener into his Groundhog Day fantasy. And repeated listens are indeed key for this album to reveal its undeniable beauty. But, whereas the record buying public welcomed challenging pop albums in the 60s, that is sadly no longer the case, and Tell A Friend made little impact upon its release. Time to change that!
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