Where Are We Now? The Return of David Bowie

Exeter-based music aficionado Matthew Vizard reports on the re-emergence of the legend that is David Bowie, with his first album release in 10 years.

Yesterday, among the BBC 6 Music presenters anticipating the records that would rule their worlds in 2013, was DJ, writer and avowed Bowie fan, Mark Radcliffe. 'He's been so mysterious and so uncharacteristically quiet, I would love just to hear a little murmur from David Bowie'.  He didn't have to wait long, because at 5am this very morning, January 8th 2013 - David Bowie's 66th birthday - pop's most celebrated chameleon released his first new song in a decade to a rapidly responding media fanfare.

In the years since Bowie was forced to cancel the remaining dates of a world tour of his last album, Reality, in order to undergo heart surgery; his son, Duncan Jones (the former 'Zowie Bowie') has built a successful career as a movie director with acclaimed films, Moon and Source Code whilst Bowie Senior has limited his work to guest appearances on stage, screen, record and in public. Many wondered whether his health had deteriorated to the point of enforced retirement - an untypically underwhelming end to the career of one of rock's most prolific and genuine artists.

Bowie had enjoyed a relatively fecund creative spell in the nineties and early 2000s, cutting a youthful figure though garnering a somewhat mixed critical and commercial response. If the material was often sharply hip and smart, it was rarely as surprising or groundbreaking as the huge and influential records of his prime. Hardly worthy of critical disparagement, but the sense of anticipation at each next artistic move had dissipated amid a tendency to follow trends rather than invent them. Nevertheless a triumphant Glastonbury performance in 2000 and subsequent acclaimed live shows underlined the talents of a still remarkably sprightly performer comfortable in the old clothes of his back catalogue while still inspired by the new music he was taking in - artists such as The Arcade Fire and fellow experimentalist, Björk.

So, forward to 2013 as music stations and publications try to predict what will make it big or simply be cool in the 12 months ahead, out of the blue appears a new song from the former Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and Thin White Duke, satisfyingly wrong-footing the nation's cultural taste makers. The reflective, wistful Where Are We Now? arrives for download alongside a video directed by the New York multimedia artist Tony Oursler. In the short film, Bowie's face, alongside that of an unknown woman, is superimposed onto a small body dummy while images of Berlin are back projected onto a screen behind. It's curious, a little artfully tongue-in-cheek perhaps, but it works. In the song, Bowie sounds older, wiser, his vocal tinged with sadness. Redolent of classic Bowie, it's appeal rests on a melancholic piano, synth and guitar chord progression which if not startlingly original, is rather touching especially in the slight rising swell of the sweetly sung chorus.

Bowie lists some of his old Berlin haunts where, between 1976 and 1979, he recorded a celebrated trilogy of albums, Low, "Heroes" and Lodger and helped revive the career of his friend Iggy Pop while the former David Jones recovered from the fame-induced addictions of his mid-seventies success/excess.  'Just walking the dead' he sings as he reflects on this critical period of his life, while to the song's titular question he responds 'as long as there's sun... as long as there's rain... as long as there's fire... as long as there's me... as long as there's you'.  It's undeniably tender, a 'something in my eye' moment of reassurance in a time of anxiety which for people of a certain age, will have equal poignancy in the very news of Bowie's return.

Bowie is back and with his old producer Tony Visconti too. As compelling a figure as ever, we await with interest the album, titled The Next Day, which iTunes is listing for pre-order (due 12th March) and of which, David's lad, Duncan Jones tweeted rather sweetly "would be lovely if all of you could spread the word about da's new album. First in ten years, and it's a good 'un!".

Words by Matthew Vizard

8th January 2013