“The record is all the things that I’d want to hear in someone’s record,” he says. “It’s a tribute to all the things that I admire, from Duke Ellington to hip hop to Steely Dan – loads of music.”
Indeed, right from the blurting distorted opener Terracotta Wonder to the fiendish cabaret of Man V Dingo and the perky acoustics of Panic Tree, Goodwin declines to pledge allegiance to just one influence. “I’ve always loved sampling culture; it’s an artform for me. I’ve always loved the re-invention and the inspiration you can get from [the] 100-odd years of recorded music. You can juxtapose a weird fiddle from a ‘30s folk track with a bassline from a ‘70s James Brown [song].”
Perhaps such irreverent genre-mashing sounds like a recipe for compositional congestion, but Doves fans will be pleased by the consistent presence of Goodwin’s plaintive vocals. Still, the Mancunian songwriter did try to ignore the precedent of his much loved career history.
“This is my life,” he says. “I’m not bothered about what I did, it’s about what I want to do now. [I wanted] to be open to all the things that I love in other people’s records and that eccentricity that I love in records. I’m not Bowie doing Ziggy; I wish I could be that fucking maverick and completely change my outfit and become this [identity]. But weirdly, in a fantasy world, I’m trying on a new suit and who knows where it will go?”
Doves most recent release is 2009’s Kingdom of Rust, so Odludek does come after a reasonably prolonged interval. Although the record shows no signs of apprehension, Goodwin inevitably felt some uncertainty about moving on without his trusted Doves counterparts, Andy and Jez Williams.
“Before I started making it,” he explains, “[I thought], ‘Where next?’ I’ve just been in a band for my whole adult life – where do I go then? Do I even want to do music? Am I any good at it? I’d never questioned my love of music since I was seven years old. Up until when Doves went on a break in 2010, I’d never had time to question it. That’s healthy, you have to take stock and go, ‘Right – is this you?’”
Well, judging by the finished product, Goodwin’s love of music was resoundingly confirmed. Aside from the odd vocal guest (including old pal Guy Garvey from Elbow), Goodwin plays everything on the record himself. Taking responsibility for all of the instrumentation sounds like a heavy task, but there’s a practical reasoning behind it.
“When I first started this project, I was going to get in lots of different collaborators, because I’d been used to collaborating with people forever. I enjoy being part of a unit, but I realised if I was going to wait around for everyone that might want to work with me, I’d be still waiting now. You’ve just got to get on with it.”
Odludek is evidence that, operating alone, Goodwin seized the opportunity to go wherever his instincts pointed. However, launching into this next career chapter, he’s not comfortable with the tag ‘solo artist’.
“The whole thing to me is called Odludek. It’s a band even. It might be a band of one right now, but it’s a band. I have to look at it like that, because that’s all I’m used to. My fucking name, it sounds like some blues thing. You know: ‘Jimi Goodwin Band’. Odludek, treat it like a new artist. In my naivety, that’s what it is.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
