Short Reviews [Billie Bottle & The Multiple - 2021 - "The Other Place"]

For some people music is something they listen to in the background, never really paying attention to what is going on, but for others it is the very reason for their existence, and they use it to help them make their way in the world. Some artists combine their music and everyday life in such a way that one simply cannot exist without the other, and that is very much the case here. On one level this is the second album from Billie Bottle & The Multiple, following on from their debut ‘Unrecorded Beam’, but on another this is social commentary and experimentation. The band are Billie Bottle (voice, piano, keyboards, guitar, percussion), Martine Waltier (voice, violin, guitar, percussion), Roz Harding (alto sax, recorder, percussion), all mainstays of Mike Westbrook’s Uncommon Orchestra, Vivien Goodwin-Darke (voice, flute, recorder, percussion) from Magic Bus, and Lee Fletcher (bass, synths, keyboards, soundscapes, voice, guitar, percussion, production). This good old fashioned art rock, where boundaries are meaningless. It is a concept piece, set in the week before the 2015 British General Election, and follows the true story of two Devon musicians (Billie and Martine) as they make their way slowly to Westminster. Wherever they stopped, they perform the same song, forty-nine times over, and started conversations with people they met, asking them "Who’s got the Power?". The responses provided the inspiration for the album, whose lyrics come from those words. All in all, a very political album then, in the truest sense of the word, and these words form the basis of what is an incredibly complex and complicated piece of work. It is easy to listen to but could never be construed as easy listening, as while it could be argued that The Canterbury Scene is the basis for most of this, as it is mixed and combined with a great deal of folk, jazz and even pop. There may be a flute in the background, vocals in the foreground, but electronic beats also making an entrance. It is a collage of sounds and styles, always intriguing and melodic, and one never knows where the music is going to lead. The use of sax, flute and recorders gives the sound a certain organic feel, and the use of multi-instrumentalists means the arrangements can be incredibly broad while also somehow staying quite simple to the ear. The result is an album which is coming massively out of left field, yet somehow has found a place in the centre, and is something which fans of multiple genres will find plenty in here to enjoy. I certainly did.