It all comes back to a good melody, doesn't it? I don't want to come off like a bitter traditionalist, but I can hardly blame anyone who thinks the highest goal of the avant-garde composer is to disguise or avoid melody. Dismiss it if you will, but avoiding melody isn't actually very easy to do for long. Harmonies and rhythms will come and go, and differ between scenes, eras and cultures with no greater significance than the color of your car versus your neighbor's. The one part of music everyone's supposed to be able to understand is the melody, and indeed, it's the part that usually gets the most attention in "general interest" circles. Even your grandmother could be fooled into liking your music if you only let her in on the melodies (mine was convinced OOIOO's "Mountain Book" was an "ancient Chinese lullaby").
Consequently, melody is often given a bad rap. Part of this is due to a few bad apples proclaiming that it's the only aspect of music worth anything (see "rap is not music" morons, and even then only as an example of melody equaling "happy fun tunes" to some people). Additionally, it's often tough to separate melody from its context, so sometimes, bad ones get all the props-- anyone for the fairly unsingable "Star Spangled Banner"? Guitarist Gary Lucas (Jeff Buckley, Captain Beefheart) must buy into the universal appeal of melody to a considerable extent because his album of Chinese popular songs from the 1930s-1950s shouldn't otherwise have much going for Westerners. The Edge of Heaven makes a solid case that what little musical ground separates us is effortlessly erased by a good song.
As Lucas details in his distractingly funny-despite-being-totally-serious liner notes ("the next step was to place a couple of these tunes on my solo acoustic album Evangeline, which the critics here and abroad raved over"), the songs on The Edge of Heaven were selected from ones performed by legendary singers/actresses Bai Kwong and Chow Hsuan during the golden age of Shanghai and Hong Kong cinema. The guitarist had spent a few years in Taiwan during the 70s, and quickly became enamored of their self-described Betty-Boop-meets-Billie-Holiday charm. There is a bit of antiquated, grandmotherly grace to these songs, but just as much a gentle, warm sentimentality that shouldn't fail to infiltrate even the most hardcore hipster's stone innards.
About half of the record is instrumental (solo guitar, and occasional rhythm accompaniment), and the vocals on the other half are provided by Singaporean television star Celeste Chong and German (!) female vocalist Gisburg. Chong's voice is a soft, bright soprano that's probably the more traditionally oriented (i.e., the style of classic Chinese pop) of the two-- though anyone expecting tortured cats needn't be worried. "Night in Shanghai" might pass for a children's song, with bouncy, folk guitar accompaniment under Chong's girly refrains. Typical for the selections on The Edge of Heaven, melodic sweetness obscures a darker message ("we see her welcome us with a smile, who knows that her heart is bitter"), though again, melody will have its way with anyone not following along with the lyric sheet. Gisburg's deeper, more sensual phrasings on "The Wall" may initially make a better fit if you're unaccustomed to Chong's nuances. The song laments the missing bond between a married couple, and Gisburg performs the fairly rigid, rhythmically complex melody with an admirably human touch.
Lucas' instrumental performances are generally ace, and anyone familiar with his work on Jeff Buckley's Grace (or last year's Songs for No One) should immediately recognize his signature, twang-chiming sound on pieces like "Old Dreams" and "Where is My Home". In particular, his work on "Pretense" sells the innate beauty of the song. Where you might think this record would be a great excuse for dull, NPR-hyped drollery, Lucas actually manages to make this song sound like it could have come from Appalachian villages, where hammer dulcimer fills the air with a homey ambience almost completely lost in more "cultured" areas. Okay, that was straight out of a PBS telethon, but all I'm saying is that you don't have to be all up in Chinese music to dig this stuff. Ultimately, I guess you just need to be into good melodies, and really, aren't we all?
