Ian Brown is a contrary man.
One minute he’s charging journalists £15 a question and giving the proceeds to charity; the next he’s in jail for drunkenly harassing a flight attendant. He plays concerts for the National Trust and has spoken out against homosexuality. He appears on hip underground recordings with James Lavelle and then shows-up in mainstream movies like "Harry Potter". Go figure. If he is inconsistent in terms of personality, the same can certainly be said of his music.
Since the Stone Roses split, Brown has certainly worked hard to convince us of his not-so-obvious talents, and has subsequently left a trail of sonic debris that is by turns baffling and inspiring. His incoherent debut "Unfinished Monkey Business" didn't get him off to an impressive start. But on subsequent albums "Golden Greats" and "Music Of The Spheres", he has gradually patched up his weaknesses and capitalised on his strengths to become the respected artist/would-be auteur he is today.
"Solarized", his fourth outing, is arguably his strongest statement yet. It’s certainly his most exotic, with confident, multi-directional/multi-layered thrusts into the music of the Middle East, North Africa and South America - all underpinned by his idiosyncratic and occasionally rambling takes on dance music and Britpop.
Having acknowledged his own limitations as a musician back on "Golden Greats", Brown nowadays surrounds himself with those who can do certain jobs far better. For "Solarized" he drafts in Groove Armada’s Tim Hutton (who supplies a steady stream of Latin brass on four songs, including the Mariachi-influenced "Time Is My Everything"), old pal Aziz Abraham (who adds some compelling guitar work to the Moorish swirls of "One Way Ticket To Paradise") and fellow Mancunian Noel Gallagher (co-writer of current single "Keep What Ya Got") among others.
The album stands out from its predecessors not just musically, but lyrically too. Though Brown can't completely avoid dipping into monotone vapidity, for the most part he stays above water. On "Kiss Ya Lips (No ID)" he re-appropriates Grooverider’s remix of "Fools Gold", underpinning it with a house-lite rhythm that carries a rant against the prospect of ID cards in the UK.
The anti-capitalism slant continues on the minimal "Upside", while opening track "Longsight M13" is a reference to the part of Manchester that still bears the "Free Ian Brown" graffiti. While these songs (and others like the masterly love missive to his wife "The Sweet Fantastic") imply some kind of semi-coherent vision, the album as a whole relies heavily on the definitively Brown-esque layers and grooves he has been working on since his 'baggy' days.
In that sense at least Brown has managed to produce yet another endearingly eccentric document: one that will largely support his growing reputation as a talented, contrary, and mischievously erratic artiste.
