Rufus Wainwright - All Days are Nights

Returning with his sixth studio album, All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu is Rufus Wainwright’s most stripped down release, the accompaniment to his voice limited throughout to a solo piano. What might at first listen sound like his simplest offering reveals itself to be as complex as any of his work.

Having become the figurehead of a musical dynasty, Rufus recorded these songs in a short period around the time of his mother, Kate McGarrigle’s, death early this year. Unsurprisingly, given his family’s reputation for primarily communicating through the medium of song (see his earlier ‘Dinner at Eight’ and sister Martha’s ‘Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole’, both directed at father Loudon Wainwright III, for cases in point), there are some deeply personal offerings here.

‘Martha’ depicts a phone call with his sister soon before their mother's death and closing track ‘Zebulon’ is a heartbreaking commemoration to the late matriarch. Overflowing with grief when he sings, but musically empty when he holds back, the latter provides the starkest and most affecting song on the album. The unfussiness of the instrumentation, along with the often florid piano parts, gives the impression of an unstoppable gushing forth of emotion, created too quickly to be shaped by grand arrangements.

Also present are a song from last year’s operetta Prima Donna, alongside three arrangements of Shakespearian sonnets. Sonnet 43, ‘When Most I Wink’, is especially memorable, drawing on a chromatic chord progression to produce an intoxicating departure from Rufus’ more “pop” days.

In all, All Days are Nights feels less like a free-standing work, and more like a set of disparate pieces with curio or two thrown in for good measure, but it’s none the worse for that. If anything, its songs represent a musical and emotional coming of age.

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