Album Review

Joker’s Daughter – The Last Laugh

• 16th Jun 2009

Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, and Helena Costas are an odd couple for sure; he the celebrated DJ/producer behind 2004’s lauded The Grey Album and Gnarls Barkley and her a virtually unknown folk singer. On paper it’s an aberration that their paths ever crossed. On record, though, they’re something a bit special.

Single ‘Worms Head’ gets things started and makes immediately apparent what the producer saw in his unlikely collaborator; Costas’ vocals are stunning as she sways sultrily, effortlessly, through her fantastical lyricism. The production is subtly dense, a simple acoustic, bass and drums at the centre with strings and keys dropping in before weird and wonderful synth and lead guitar lines slip in. This sets up a consistently high-quality album that plays as well as a successful cross-genre experiment as it does a straight-up summer chill record.

The key to the Joker’s Daughter sound is the harmony between the organic beauty of Costas’ acoustic folk and Burton’s rich, eclectic arrangements; which comes out on top depends on the track: ‘Go Walking’ and ‘Cake and Jelly’, to name a couple, required only a light touch at Danger Mouse’s end to make them shine, and the production is suitably restrained. Barrett proceeds to let loose, though, for example, on ‘ Jelly Belly’, which bounds along with puppy dog glee on its goofy bassline, and with the distorted guitar and synth combo that makes the rocky ‘Under the influence of Jaffa Cakes’. In sum, the result is collection well-written folk songs with great production and brilliant pieces of production featuring a great folk singer.

This is a surprisingly fruitful collaboration that should push Danger Mouse’s reputation as a producer par excellence further into the stratosphere while garnering well-earned mainstream acclaim for Costas.