Review Summary: Inside Out maintains the smooth, nocturnal atmosphere that was heard on much of Solid Air, but a renewed focus on ambiance and experimentation leads to thrilling, if inconsistent results
There’s a clear line of influence to be traced from Martyn’s previous work to this one. In fact, if one were to pick apart the individual components of each song, there’s hardly an element to be found here that wasn’t used somewhere in Solid Air, whether in instrumentation or style. It’s all there, carried over wholesale from Martyn’s magnum opus: the nimble acoustic guitar, the atmospheric, jazz-heavy double bass, saxophones, harmonicas, the funk, jazz, blues influence in the electric guitar. But the growth that Inside Out represents is much more organic than a sudden stylistic shift or changeup in instrumentation would represent, and much more radical than the relative aural continuity between albums would imply.
Very rarely does Inside Out sound like the straightforward folk that was to be found on tracks like Over The Hill or May You Never. Rather, the evolution of Inside Out from its predecessor has roots in the moody jazz-funk of numbers like I’d Rather Be the Devil and Dreams by the Sea, but where those tracks still leaned on the side of folk, Inside Out dives headfirst into that night-drenched atmosphere with only a few friendly nods towards Martyn’s lilting acoustic roots. Indeed, the first straightforward folk number on the album, The Glory of Love, doesn’t appear until almost halfway through the album, and feels almost more like an ironic sendup than a straightforward expression as Martyn adopts an exaggerated rasp over a basic bluesy guitar pattern that manages to meld well with the slight out-thereness of the rest of the album. It all seems to be part of the branching out that Martyn is attempting with this album, just one of the experiments of mood and sound that he’s attempting in his exploration of the limits and pathways of his style.
Where his previous work was relatively no-frills, Inside Out is often lush to the point of indulgence, all reverb-soaked psychedelic guitar and pensive, moody saxophone. Eibhli Ghail Chiun Chearbhail, Outside In and Beverley in particular act as drawn-out interludes awash in psychedelic noodling and Martyn’s slurred, smoky vocal tricks, and while they further the spaced-out, dissociated atmosphere and lend to the coherence of mood that elevates the rest of the album, there are moments, especially on Eibhli, when it all seems repetitive, overindulgent and a little unnecessary. But when it works, as on the drawn-out psychedelic jazz mood-jam on the back half of Outside In, it’s a distillation of the hazy, night-drenched atmosphere that permeates the rest of the album. The rest of the album likewise represents a pushing-out from everything Martyn had attempted before, an experiment and transition perhaps, but cohesive in its very eclecticism, united in an atmosphere of haze and night, weed-addled rambles by a moonlit sea, the moment of stumbling in a drunken stupor.
Special mention has to be made here of Martyn’s voice. At its best, it seamlessly compliments the moody, heady atmosphere of the album, his dark, raspy croon communicating night, smoke, disorientation. Never before has he drawn so strongly from jazz as on here, both in his vocal stylings and his instrumentation, and, as on those moments when his voice is duelling with the saxophone on So Much In Love With You and Outside In, the result is thrilling, his voice an instrument melding and swirling around the rest of the ensemble. But when, on rare occasion, he lets that slur get away from him, whether it’s a conscious affectation or a result of the alcoholism he was battling at the time, the result comes across slightly more mushmouthed than musical. It’s a style that some might either love or hate, and both supporters and detractors will find support for their positions on Inside Out, but at its best it makes for some of the most purely atmospheric moments of Martyn’s career.
Inside Out was released a mere nine months after Solid Air, and that gestation period may have had some portent for Martyn, who clearly wanted to make the most of the chance to experiment offered by the success of his previous album. Inside Out, for all its experimentation, is probably best viewed as a natural, liberated outgrowth from previous work, and as such it’s allowed to pursue avenues that sometimes lead to dead ends. But for all that, the album is an often thrilling dive into pure mood, an exercise in atmosphere to deepen moments that evoke smoke or solitude.
