Gnarls Barkley - St.Elsewhere

Wed 19th Jul, 2006 in Music Reviews

Sometimes great voices simply require the helping hand of a great producer to bring out their best. Al Green recorded classic albums such as Al Green Gets Next to You (1971), Let’s Stay Together (1972) and I’m Still in Love With You (1972) under the guidance of Willie Mitchell and after many years of lesser material returned to form using Mitchell’s production on the I Can’t Stop (2003) and Everything’s OK (2005). Now another great soul singer who goes by the name of Green has started what could be a perfect pairing of voice and producer – as soul machine Cee-Lo Green teams up with the much hyped production skills of Dangermouse to form Gnarls Barkley.

What’s baffling is that it’s taken so long for Cee-Lo to find the adoration of the mainstream, for – with the possible exceptions of Kanye West and OutKast’s Andre 3000 – no singer has managed to be embraced by music fans from so many diverse fields; offering something for fans of hip-hop, indie and pop alike. The success of lead single ‘Crazy’ as the first song to top the British charts on downloads alone has marked Gnarls as a symbol of the supposed internet generation, yet it’s a song you’ll just as likely hear blaring from the speakers of the most tech-phobic of baby-boomers. Even saturation airplay on even the most limpid of radio playlists hasn’t turned away too many of the ‘underground’ snobs; resistance to Cee-Lo is now seemingly impossible.

As a member of the Dirty South collective the Dungeon Family Cee-Lo’s long been associated with OutKast, lending his vocals to several of their songs and recently making an even stronger pitch for the mainstream by writing the hit single ‘Don’t Cha’ which was pushed up the charts by the sass and marketing skills of the Pussycat Dolls. His 2004 solo album Cee-Lo Green… Is the Soul Machine was a kaleidoscopic tour de force through soul and hip-hop genres as Cee-Lo displayed a depth and versatility that proved he was capable of playing any character in the cast of modern urban music. Cee-lo takes his name from a gambling game played with three six-sided dice and appropriately enough there’s a fair element of chance in determining exactly which one of his many voices will be heard, as he can belt out neo-soul, battle raps and club tracks with equal dexterity and skill.

Soul Machine pushed 75 minutes and, other than brief intro and outro skits, it was a powerful display of a talent itching to break into huge success – as a stunned voice questions Cee-Lo ‘Is there anything you don’t do?’ It was also a display that harnessed the talents of producers including DJ Premier, The Neptunes and Timbaland, yet for all its dazzling array of styles and voices it failed to connect  – much like Common’s similarly eclectic opus Electric Circus, which featured Cee-Lo on ‘Between Me, You, & Liberation’ and ‘Heaven Somewhere’.  Common followed his genre pushing album by teaming up with his Chi-city counterpart Kanye West to produce Be, a record that successfully focused Common’s skill’s without the genre gymnastics of Electric Circus. Similarly Cee-Lo has found his own rewards and sharper commercial focus by recording an album that is less expansive than his previous efforts, but no less impressive.

For this outing Cee-Lo has teamed with Dangermouse, a producer whose primary coloured beats have animated the recent Gorillaz and DangerDoom albums as well as attracting the attention of EMI’s lawyers for his Jay-Z and Beatles mash up – on the Grey Album. It seems Dangermouse is a producer with a flair for the slightly oddball- wether working with imaginary cartoon bands, metallic mask wearing rappers, or Beyoncé’s boyfriend and the ghost of John Lennon. Cee-Lo certainly fits the oddball category, as evidenced by the series of publicity photos of the Gnarls Barkley duo raiding the costume departments of their favorite films – see Cee-Lo and Dangermouse do Clockwork Orange, The Big Lebowski and Wayne’s World! But then what more would you expect from these two; one named after a cartoon spy-rodent and the other who’s gone by names including Car Belly, Lil’ Buddah and Cookie Monster.

Together they have created an album that, despite its brevity, contains more thrills and hooks than many bands greatest hits compilations. Over just 38 minutes the duo manage to cram in 14 tracks, not so much leaving you wanting more, but desperately leaving you lunging for the repeat button. Sure, there’s nothing here that will drastically rewrite pop, or soul, or hip-hop music; but that’s not really the point – this is the sound of two performers at the top of their game and loving every minute of it.

The album fades in to catch the ‘Go Go Gadget Gospel’ in full carnival flight, spinning and bouncing with lights and sounds like some crazed ferris wheel lurching about on a bungee rope. Cee-Lo’s knows he’s onto a good thing from the get go, ecstatically declaring,

/I want action, passion, smiling/
/laughing, yielding, feeling/
/helping, healing/
...
/I’m free, look at me/
/freedom in Hi Fidelity/

From this opening till the album spins out with the sound of a flickering film reel there are plenty of thrills and twists that prove Gnarls Barkley’s freedom to do almost anything. After all how many albums feature a song about necrophilia, another about Feng Shui and a cover of the Violent Femmes ‘Gone Daddy Gone’?

Yet despite these prankish oddities there’s an edge of unease in the lyrics; glimpses of tears behind the clowning. Obviously it’s there in Cee-Lo’s personal diagnosis in the single ‘Crazy’,

/I remember when I lost my mind/
...
/does that make me Crazy?/
/possibly/

But references to fears of insanity are frequent across the album. Several songs, including ‘Transformer’, ‘The Boogie Monster’, ‘Just a Thought’ and ‘Smiley Faces’, focus on Cee-Lo’s struggle with finding his ‘true’ voice. On ‘Transformer’ he notes

/Now I’m someone else/
/now someone can be me too/

‘Just a Thought’ even has the singer contemplating suicide, while ‘Who Cares?’ opens with Cee-Lo commenting that

/Basically I’m complicated/
...
/I wouldn’t call it schizophrenia/
/But I will be at least two people/
/Today/
/If that’s ok/

This theme also crops up in the album’s title, St Elsewhere, paying homage to the 1980’s medical ‘dramady’ that suggested in its final episode that the entire course of events of the show’s six-year run were a figment of an autistic boy’s imagination. Cee-Lo may only be presenting one style of voice on this album, but it seems that there’s always another character, another personality, lurking just below the surface.

Backing all of this soul(ful)-searching Dangermouse has crafted a freewheeling, retro-futuristic soundscape using the brightest and cleanest colours at his disposal. Dangermouse displays his knack for folding DJ Shadow style drum splicing, spaghetti western atmospherics and the odd sound effect into the mix, with a vocal production that has Cee-Lo well out front – where he belongs.

Anyone checking in to the world of St Elsewhere can only give one diagnosis – Gnarls is alive and well, and should recover from a brief spell of over-hype it be regarded as one of the fittest albums of the year. Cee-Lo has two albums in the pipeline to capitalise on his success – both collaborative efforts; one with funkster Plantlife, the other a long delayed project with producer/rapper Jazze Pha. Dangermouse has been at work on the new album from The Rapture and it looks like future projects with Black Thought of the Roots and another record with Damon Albarn are likely. Yet the gun producer for hire and the man of many voices have found a near perfect sound in Gnarls and hopefully it’s not too long before they come together again. If they’re to continue naming their albums after classic TV shows perhaps they should consider Twin Peaks as their next album title. It would be fitting in many ways.