Lucky Pierre is the solo identity of Aidan Moffat, who until last year was the vocal half of Arab Strap. Malcolm Middleton handled most of the music in that outfit, but Moffat had plenty of the stuff in his own head, and since 2002 has kept a release schedule on the side even more prolific than his primary band's. This is his third Pierre record, though it's the first since he shortened the "Lucky" bit to just plain "L."
The name originally comes from the title of an early 1960s sexploitation flick called the Adventures of Lucky Pierre, which is something you might expect if you've listened to much Arab Strap. But while Moffat spent his time in that band deadpanning his way through the pain of romantic loss until the beer ran out, there's none of that here. Moffat's instrumental side is sounding pretty darn grand these days, even angelic in places. Whether it's a good look for him is debatable, though you have to admire his willingness to step out right after his very well-liked band just broke up and throw a curveball like this-- let's just say it's unlikely Pierre could get lucky with this as a soundtrack. He might get murdered though.
The album's biggest problem is that it's terribly unbalanced, opening with three droning, very similar tracks, one of which lasts 12 minutes with only the introduction of a plinky drum machine halfway through for variation. Human voice sounds, seemingly sampled into a synthesizer, lie very, very still while trumpets meander on top of them, creating the sort of sound that might play when the pearly gates appear in a movie, except that it lasts a really long time and never goes anywhere. It's a long way from the thump and dread of the first Lucky Pierre album.
It's the second half of the record where things get more interesting. "Ache" and "Hike" are both composed mostly for strings, but they're wildly different from each other and everything that surrounds them. You could guess what "Ache" sounds like from the title. It's a mournful two-chord piano skeleton wrapped in self-doubting string section flesh, very much like a lost Dakota Suite track. For the first two minutes the rhythm of the piano chords keeps slowing down, and as the piece loses forward energy, the strings come apart, regrouping as the rhythm stabilizes in the middle. "Hike", on the other hand feeds off of forward momentum the whole way, with a string section that builds off a quick baroque cello figure and gallops along with a drum machine that sounds like bacon sizzling and banjo that should sound out of place but doesn't. If you've ever wanted to hear a banjo play something that sounds like Bach (and I mean that as an unqualified compliment to the music), here's your chance.
And then it's back to the drones, which are all very pretty but ultimately not too exciting. They frequently sound like backgrounds begging for a foreground. I love the way the piano part rolls in and out like a wave on the shore on "Drift", but I'd like the tide to grow more or less turbulent along the way-- to vary in some respect. The synths that waft on top don't lead anywhere. There are building blocks for something fantastic in most of these pieces, but only in two of them have they been used to make more than the sum of their parts.
