En skotsk personlighet

The preview “En skotsk personlighet” (“A Scottish personality”) in Tromsø (27 April 1996) announces Leven as a man “with the big personality, musically and humanly” who plays at Blå Rock Café the following evening (28 April). Some will have seen him the day before on NRK’s “Helg i solnedgang”. The Irishman Andy White opens; then Leven plays alone with his guitar.

Matland retells the familiar legend: Leven fronted Doll By Doll, who released four records between 1979 and 1982, were declared geniuses by the critics but largely overlooked by record buyers in a time when the new wave drew attention away from those who stayed rooted in rock’n’roll. The band split in 1982 and Leven started recording his first solo project. Walking home from the studio after an argument, he was attacked and nearly killed in one of London’s seedier districts, saved at the last moment by musicians who had followed him; the stranglehold cost him speech and song. Two years in hospital, heroin and alcohol, and a collapse in his love life followed. Then he got back on his feet with his own withdrawal model based on tapering down – which, according to the text, earned him Britain’s highest civil honour and is continued in a facility he runs. These details belong to the press stories of the time and are unverified.

Leven also runs his own whisky distillery with the brand “Leven’s Lament”, which the author Salman Rushdie is said to have certified with the words: “Try it, you’ll get sadder – but wiser.” On the Wednesday of that week his third solo album, The Argyll Cycle – Volume One, came out, after The Mystery Of Love Is Greater Than The Mystery Of Death (1994) and Forbidden Songs Of The Dying West (1995). Together these records give the picture of a distinctive musician with beauty, poetry, atmosphere and thoughtfulness; Celtic melancholy cannot be avoided but is never allowed to steer the music alone.

On page 31 of the same issue Matland reviews The Argyll Cycle as “Lukter litt whisky” with a dice rating of four. The album contains four new songs and a handful of earlier B-sides and offers a small glimpse behind the curtains of the period after the murder attempt and the mute phase, up to 1990. It is a small step back from his two previous solo records but still beautiful, poetic and atmospheric, not without Celtic melancholy. Leven has long had good reviews but trouble breaking through with buyers; perhaps the time has finally come. But try Forbidden Songs and The Mystery of Love first, he advises.