Dream Brother: The Songsof Tim+Jeff Buckley

Mon 7th Aug, 2006 in Music Reviews

Now hold on one second. Rewind. How is it that a tribute album to two of the greatest musicians of the 20th century could be so ruthlessly ignored by the musical world?

True, last year’s Dream Brother: The Songs of Tim+Jeff Buckley did get a review on the Rolling Stone website, but it was dismissed with an incredible two stars from the reviewer Douglas Wolk, who seems to believe that a tribute album from anyone but big name artists isn’t worth a mention. Anyone reading his review would assume the album was “feathery” and “timid”. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the average user rating (4.5 stars) on the same website seems to suggest. More relevant adjectives, perhaps, might include “moving”, “inventive” and “daring”.

Stalwart fans of Jeff Buckley would be delighted with Adem’s restless, rolling rendition of ‘Mojo Pin’ and King Creosote’s truly haunting ‘Grace’. The old-worldly folk qualities of King Creosote’s vocals infuse the song with an honesty that was often hidden behind a veil of lust and lungs in Jeff Buckley’s original works, and one can’t help but think of gypsies, fires and caravans.

‘Dream Brother’, covered by Bitmap, takes a few more steps away from the original. Eerie electronic beats, sounds and effects infiltrate the rich harmonies of the song, which are taken and thrown up into the sky when the chorus arrives. The song eventually descends into a cataclysmic finale, offering up ‘Dream Brother’ on a slightly more digital dish.

The bizarre, electronic recreation of classic ‘Everybody Here Wants You” by Matthew Herbert and Dani Siciliano is perhaps the most interesting find on the album. On first listen, you could easily be disappointed by the impersonal, repetitive nature of the lyrics. Herbert and Siciliano have taken snippets, reworked them and meshed them together, but in such a way that keeps you aching for more, rather than displaying the sexuality of the piece in the same blatantly seductive manner of the original. 

Sounds good? Don’t get me started on the Tim Buckley covers. They are quite simply astounding.

Sufjan Stevens (who name seems to be the only one Rolling Stone reviewer Douglas Wolk recognises) portrays ‘She Is’ with beautiful and confronting simplicity. Tall green grass, bubbling brooks, rustling wheat and heart-felt sighs are brought to mind by the delicate vocals, banjo, guitar and anonymous woodwind instruments, and the opening track of the album, ‘Sing a Song for You’ is simply sweet and gorgeous, breathed out by The Magic Numbers and innocently capturing the sadness of young, unrequited love.

‘No Man Can Find the War’ finds its home with Tuung. This is, perhaps, one of the best covers I have ever heard. The guitar arrangement is a work of genius, and when combined with junkyard synths and haunting vocals, it forms an amazingly masterful piece of music that conveys, with perfect accuracy, the Vietnam-inspired tone of Larry Beckett’s lyrics.

Perhaps what Douglas Wolk failed to take into account was the philosophical and musical legacy of the Buckley geniuses themselves, who refused to make music for the masses and instead created honest, heartfelt works whose unhindered emotion makes them some of the most revered tunes in music history. Dream Brother: The Songs of Tim+Jeff Buckley takes this disregard for average musical sensibilities and reflects it back onto the songs themselves in a modern and individual style, reinterpreting the songs in new and inventive ways which are not by any means either “feathery” or “timid”.

If you ever find this album in a record store or, perchance, it falls into your lap, please do not hesitate to put it in your cd player, burner, mp3 player, whatever. However you choose to listen to it, this tribute should be a classic in any Buckley devotee’s collection, not to mention anyone who has good taste in music. I guess that counts out Rolling Stone.

Dream, brother.