Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It Might Never Happen is Jim Pearson’s fifth studio album. If you have not heard Jim Pearson so far, you need to. Simply put, the album is thoughtful, evocative, playful and intelligent indie-pop and indie-folk at its finest and catchiest. Eclectic and retro in sound, the songs will have listeners tapping out a beat and humming along as much as any cheesy pop song and whatever the lyrics are doing the songs mostly have an upbeat sensibility.
This sensibility is something at odds with lyrics that encompass modern life at its most mundane, at odds with plaintive social conscience calls for a life less complicated, for life a little more human, for more human politics. If the sound is often upbeat, the vocal is often equally as fragile, achingly clean with an enduring sensitivity. Not down and dour, the beauty here is in the juxtaposition and the contrast, the lyrics often running perfectly at odds with the music.
Perhaps it’s just a little more real than what the listener typically hears. Sad or yearning, more in hope than expectation, the falling upon wry knowing humour and clever asides, lyrics with meaning and subtext. Layers of sound exemplify beautiful, yet simple production values.
The listener hears a vast array of musical instruments, but nothing is overdone, each given its correct space and timing. Guitar, bass, drums, trumpet, piano, synth, banjo, accordion…choir! Musical influences ranging from David Bowie’s Hunky Dory period to white reggae heavy steady base reminiscent of Message In A Bottle by The Police. One track offers Lo-fi synthesiser with compressed vocals typical of Kraftwerk or Buggles; later flamenco raises its head, so to the strains of a Mull of Kintyre-esque song complete with previously mentioned choir.
The album is eclectic but it never sinks into pastiche. With so many flavours it should fail but instead it’s like a fine single malt whiskey, lots of flavour and influences, but so well balanced. The strength and continuity of the lyrics and sheer force of personality alone bring together what should in all likelihood seem disparate and impossible.
An ambitious project and an absolute delight, however not everyone wants eclectic when it comes to an album, many people want a consistent soundscape, some might struggle with the album and will need to look elsewhere. Poetically they say you do not choose your subject, rather your subject chooses you. If that is the case then Jim Pearson’s subject might be ‘upbeat melancholia’ and it’s possible to have never been so happy being so sad.
Christopher Coey