Track of the Week: Cameron Winter delivers true frenetic conflict on ‘Warning’
Bringing a load of artists together to create a charity album is a huge undertaking, but it takes someone like Cameron Winter to really cut through the heart of the true reason they are there in the first place.
The Geese frontman has very much made a name for himself in the alternative zeitgeist for a startling mode of song production, one that commands the attention in an instant and keeps the listener rapt there for as long as he chooses. In this sense, he was always going to be the ideal candidate to hammer home the true message of Help(2).
For all of Winter’s layers of sonic genius, the instrumentals of ‘Warning’ are strikingly sparse. It is fuelled by the pace of strings and strings alone – not serene and soaring as in Harry Styles’s ‘Coming Up Roses’, but staccato, sharp, and fizzing with a fractious energy that is impossible to fully contain.
This grating pulse is immediately offset by Winter’s plain and straightforward vocal; not boring by any means, but intentionally jarring as he presents the unerring calm against a chaotic and ever-changing backdrop. The world may be imploding, but he is just watching it all ensue. As if being “dragged down Fifth Avenue by the hairs in their ears” is a totally normal thing to say.
Amid all the very laudable romps and rock and roll prestige that Help(2) has managed to cultivate, ‘Warning’ feels more than ever as if it embodies the true mission statement of the record. This is not the place to heap praise on the stars for all their musical prowess, even though there is space for that. Kids are being bombed, and it’s time to heed the call.
The title of ‘Warning’ in itself acts as not just the superficial symbolism for that, but the entire course of the track, as tensions continue to rise and the rest of the world gormlessly watches on, is the perfect parallel to the marriage between Winter and his sonics here. Nothing about this is meant to make you comfortable, but it is meant to make you listen.
As Rich Clarke, Head of Music at War Child, explained in an exclusive interview with Far Out: “The problem is huge. We’re in 14 countries around the world, and we’re reaching a lot of kids, but we’re nowhere near reaching as many as we’d like to. And I think that creates a sense of urgency, and collective action is the answer. Small changes inspire big differences.”
Winter may make up just one of 23 tracks on Help(2), and is nowhere near the biggest name to lend their vocals, but his inimitable musical presence is one that the record would be lost without. Voices blur, strings clash, none of it is particularly pretty – but isn’t that stroke of genius really the point?
As conflicts erupt around the world and more and more children get caught in the crossfire, a song like ‘Warning’ is the absolute manifestation of their unique fear, confusion, and upheaval through all of this. It’s the crowning jewel of an album like Help(2), because it’s saying what truly needs to be said.
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