Best known as the bespectacled sideman of Blur, multi-instrumentalist Graham Coxon has long been broadcast as the scrappy yin to frontman Damon Albarn’s debonair yang. After leaving Blur in 2002 during the recording of the band’s final album, Think Tank, Coxon turned to his solo career, which had commenced in 1998. Fast-forward to today and you have The Spinning Top, Coxon’s seventh studio album. With an exploded palette that’s in stark contrast to his sometimes barebones affairs in the past, it has brought him the best reviews he’s ever had.
With good reason: An ambitious, hour-long meditation on various intersections of folk, blues, psych, and jazz, it’s the work of a fully bloomed virtuoso. Singing in his usual creaky tones, Coxon plays guitar, soprano sax, and half a dozen other instruments himself. He also finds ideal backing in drummer Graham Fox, pianist Louis Vause, double-bassist Danny Thompson, singer Lucy Parnell, a cast of Indian string players, and guest guitarist Robyn Hitchcock, among others. The Spinning Top was produced by frequent Blur collaborator Stephen Street, who brings an organising influence to the album’s scattershot byways and acoustic core. Oh, and it’s also a concept album.
This latest triumph caps a banner year for Coxon, following his involvement with Pete Doherty’s return-to-form solo debut and, of course, a string of dates with a reunited Blur. Whether or not his future lies in more work with Blur, Coxon has certainly proven he can stand on his own.
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With The Spinning Top, you’ve released as many albums alone as with Blur. It is strange to reach that milestone?
Now that you mention it, I suppose it is. It’s a bit too many, maybe. I don’t really think about it.
It’s also a concept album spanning one man’s life. Is this the first time you’ve done something like that?
Yeah. It was just a way for me to organise the songs on the album and create some sort of a thread running through it. I didn’t really want to overdo the concept, because I know people think it’s a bit weird or boring or old-fashioned or annoying or embarrassing or hippie-ish. I didn’t want to over-egg the old custard too much. It was just really for me, and it’s there if people want to listen to it in that way. But I don’t want to be a fascist about how you listen to a record or some sort of tour guide. You should listen to it however you like. There’s a loose narrative, but I think it’s pretty vague. All the songs work pretty much on their own. But it’s a decent way of taking it out of that dangerous autobiographical thing. I mean, I do write things about my own experiences, but there’s a lot of stuff on the record that I haven’t experienced. So it’s a mixed bag, really.
It seems like you work through a different set of influences with each album. This time it was Davey Graham and John Martyn, who are cited in the credits. Is that fair to say?
It probably is, actually. I mean, there’s so much really great music that’s been made. I suppose none of us think that we listen to bad music. It’s just a good way to exploring my idea of what I like about music. I know it’s not amazingly groundbreaking or anything – I don’t know what is groundbreaking now, particularly – but I just like the idea of jazz and blues and folk music colliding, and what was going on in the ’60s. I like how it sounded and how raw and dynamic it was. So really, for this record, I wanted to get my hands around that a little bit. And it wasn’t anything that came easily. It was a few years of working quite hard at picking styles and things. Eventually these songs came out. But yeah, I don’t mind showing my influences, whether it’s punk stuff, New Wave, the Cars, the Ruts … to me it’s all really, really, really good. I’ve got an appetite for lots of different music. It somehow just rubs off on me.
The album has spare, repetitive portions, but also heavier, psychedelic moments, like on ‘Dead Bees’ and ‘Caspian Sea’. Were you trying to capture that whole range?
Yeah, probably. I think in the end the music that I always come back to and really appreciate the most is psychedelic music, like the Misunderstood and July and Pink Floyd. It makes me happy. I like the idea of playing with people’s hearing, what they hear, and making it quite entertaining. There’s a lot of this and that to listen out for. I like music where you notice more about it the more you listen to it. And all these little sounds have their personal triggers for you. I just like that kind of stuff.
There are quite a few guests on The Spinning Top, each bringing in something distinct.
Definitely. Sometimes my own limitations are alright, but with this I wanted to jam a little bit. I really wanted to get a jazz drummer in, because I wanted things to have that pre-John Bonham swing, like Mitch Mitchell. And I thought that Danny Thompson is just the man when it comes to upright bass on this kind of thing. So that stuff just grew really nicely. It was a great atmosphere. The middle section of ‘Brave The Storm’ and ‘In The Morning’ were pretty neat to record. Using the Indian string sections and the classical singer [on ‘In The Morning’] … I have a bit of an obsession with Ennio Morricone’s Western [film scores], Fistful Of Dollars and all that. So I wanted to get that feeling, a very beautiful voice to play the part of some sort of strange spirit lady from the sea. It was a bit crazy. But I like it. It’s a rich sounding record. There’s a lot of old equipment, so that helped make it sound classic in a way.
You worked with producer Stephen Street, who helmed two of your other albums and three Blur albums.
Also, Mike Pelanconi, the engineer, was very important in getting these sounds. Stephen is good to have in the studio because he’s really consistent. He’s always the same, no matter where I am. I can be all over the place at times, not knowing what I want to do and what style I need, and he’s quite good at [advising me]. He’s like the grownup in the studio. It’s me that can be erratic, but never Stephen. He always brings me into normality. But not too much.
You did the single ‘This Old Town’ with Paul Weller in 2007 and more recently had a hand in Pete Doherty’s solo album Grace/Wastelands. Those guys are icons of British music, past and present. What did you get out of each experience?
Well, I loved working with Paul. He’s an amazing musician. I know he’s been around for quite a while and he’s not always fully appreciated. He never puts a foot wrong in the studio and he’s a really good bloke. And I think with the Pete thing, Stephen [Street] wanted me in there to do the sort of job I would do in Blur, really, trying to interpret what was going on in the songs and come up with themes. Just be around, I guess, for Pete to make fun of or have a bit of a giggle with. And it was good fun.
Blur did some reunion dates this year. Is there any chance of more dates or even some recording?
Not at the moment. Everyone seems to be really busy again, getting back to their usual stuff. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens next year. I think it’d be interesting to do more stuff. If everyone thinks that way, I don’t see why something else might not happen. But there’s nothing in the cards right now.
The Spinning Top is out Friday on Transgressive/Stomp.