Thanks to Fatea for reviewing Homeworking. Read the review by Adam Jenkins here.
Robert Lane has many strings to his bow. It wouldn't be inaccurate to call him a triple threat... he's a musician, an actor, and an improv comedian. With his latest album, he's added a fourth talent, as the entire thing was self-produced as well. Homeworking, with its very apt title, has been two years in the making, and those two have been among the most turbulent in recent memory for pretty much everyone. For Lane that period included cancelling a tour, moving house (with an unforeseen extended period living with his wife's parents), and completely renovating the property they eventually moved into. I'm not sure where he gets his energy from, but if he could bottle it up and sell it he'd be richer than Bezos and Musk.
DIY albums have been around for some time, or course, though they have increased exponentially since the dark times of the pandemic when there was little other choice. There was a time when the quality differential was noticeable, especially given the challenges around soundproofing, but it's become harder and harder to tell the difference. With Homeworking, it's nigh on impossible to tell this was largely conceived and produced in various bedrooms and spare rooms across several houses. It's quite staggering what can be achieved without the increased expense of heading to a studio.
One of the advantages to homeworking is the lack of time pressures to finish the track without incurring either additional expense or lost time. Whether or not that has fed into the new album, each song feels like they were carefully crafted with maximum love and attention. These are not the pared back songs you may expect given the circumstances. There's a hell of a lot going here, with layers and layers of sound and vocals that enshroud the listener and make for a wondrous sonic experience. Crucially though, there isn't too much going on, and each song gets what it needs to really shine.
Something Lane excels in is creating accessible and enjoyable music, and there is absolutely nothing dismissive in the use of those terms. These are songs created to be heard and enjoyed, and while Lane is clearly a very talented guitarist, these aren't necessarily showcases for that talent. Having said that, perhaps the superb Clean Echoes comes closest to highlighting those skills, given it is the sole instrumental on the album. What we get with Homeworking are twelve songs that delight without coming close to over-staying their welcome (only two of them break the four-minute mark).
If you're not a stranger to Lane's music, some of these tracks may be somewhat familiar to you. Listen In was released as a single back in 2020, as a co-write with Matthew Pinfield. Christmas 2020 (This Year Is Absurd) was his Christmas song from the same year, and there have been two or three singles since. These include the standout track A Lover of a Friend which was released as a Bandcamp exclusive in March 2021, which is one of his finest songs to date.
Overall though, rather than being an album containing some standout tracks and some filler to make up the time, every track hits home and fits in perfectly with what's around it. Take for example the three-song run on the second half of the album - Kidding Myself, Your Baby's Changed Her Mind, Wait So Long - which may not be obvious singles but are amongst the most interesting and enjoyable tracks on the album. It's an atrociously lazy comparison to make, but in that way Homeworking is reminiscent of some of the Beatles' albums. I suspect many reviews of the album may end up using the word Beatlesesque, but even while that has been a lofty goal for some musicians, few earn the term as Robert Lane does.
While there are advantages of Homeworking an album, there is perhaps one major pitfall. It could be easy for doubt to creep in when there's nobody else to work with. While there's little evidence of that here, Lane's use of crowdfunding/pre-ordering near the end of the process was in part to help feel like he had a commission, which helped push it over the line to get it finished. If there was any doubt at play while recording it, thank goodness it didn't derail the process at all, because this is one of the best, and certainly most enjoyable, albums of the year. With so many different creative endeavours going on, it's a relief that the musical side isn't getting sidelined
Adam Jenkins
