Folk musicians are not always renowned for their sense of humour – unless Mumford and Sons were wearing those waistcoats as a joke. But there’s plenty of droll wit on display onThe title is, of course, a play on Roxy Music – as is the eye-grabbing sleeve, which recreates the famous image of actress and model Kari-Ann Moller that graced the 1972 debut by Bryan Ferry’s raffish art-rockers.
Gazing up at the camera, eyes flashing with wry amusement, 76-year-old Thompson is a powerhouse of vigour and mischief. Yet if the packaging is playful, the songs within are anything but. Written by Thompson with the express intention of being sung by other artists,is an eerily melodic, often bleak meditation on the traumas of the ageing process and the spectre of mortality.
The sense of loss that runs through the LP is accentuated by Thompson’s absence from her own material. Following a decades-long struggle with spasmodic dysphonia – a neurological condition affecting the vocal cords – she has essentially lost the power to sing and thus is a ghostly presence haunting her own record.In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Thompson was part of a generation of artists who gave British folk a fashionable makeover.
Sadness about the loss of youthful vitality turns to surrealism on “John Grant”, a rich and velvety valentine to the Colorado singer, performed by none other than…, who, to his credit, manages not to sound self-conscious as he sings his own praises . The only misstep is the cheesy final track, “Those Damn Roches”. A salute to the Roche musical dynasty from New Jersey delivered by Linda’s son Teddy, it feels like an in-joke between two singing families that leaves the listener on the outside, wondering what all the fuss is about. But it’s a rare disposable moment on a project that takes a long, hard look at our twilight years and refuses to pull its punches.