Tag: music, albums

[music, albums] December 10, 2002 at 8:47:14 PM CET

I have found what I was looking for

Did you know that there was a site dedicated to Neil Young's still unavailable On the Beach from 1974?

This site has one purpose: To enable you all to sign your name on the petition to re-release ON THE BEACH This is the place to sign the petition in the hope that Neil will see it, recognize it for the genuine appeal that it is and maybe allow a CD reissue. The Petition currently has 4,620 entries!

But the best about this highly laudable initiative is that its originator offers mp3 links to all eight songs on the album.

The adequate accompanying 10/10 review of this album is here at the wonderful music site Nude as the News.

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[music, albums] December 9, 2002 at 10:23:29 PM CET

IV: 1999 Pinback - This Is a Pinback CD

Before listening to the 1999 albums again my favourite was Blur's last and probably best album 13 and I was pretty sure about this choice. For the first time the readers' vote and mine were about to match. But then I listened to the European release (with two bonus tracks) of Pinback's debut CD and was overwhelmed. Pinback against Blur was a fight between simplicity and complexity. Between the feeling and the thinking. The countryside and the city. As so often I had to go for the plainness.

The cover is kind of surreal. A white-haired man and a middle-aged woman wave at each other. Each of them has almost crossed a small bridge made of wooden boards. They are about three meters apart. The two bridges on which they stand span two small creeks merging into one slightly bigger creek flowing slowly into the coniferous forest. A mountain of which the top is cut off by the photo looms behind. Why do the man and the woman raise their arms to say hello if they could talk to each other? A philosophical message concerning the futility of verbal communication seems to lie behind the image.

Pinback are the two multi-instrumentalists Rob Crow from Heavy Vegetable and Zach Smith from Three Mile Pilot. On three tracks Rob Zinser who is also from Three Mile Pilot plays the drums. Their hometown is San Diego but it wouldn't be correct to say that their music is sunny. The mood is closer to Mark Kozelek's Red House Painters without being as desperate and forlorn.

As I am not able to put this music into adequate words I can only use all the stereotypes and clichés I know here. Pinback have a distinct sound dominated by guitar, bass, keyboards, drum machine and the low-key voices of Crow and Smith. Usually one of them starts to sing and the other one joins in later singing his own lyrics. Each song has two sets of lyrics which fuse in beautiful harmonies. The tunes are airy and light but unforgettable. Time does not exist in this microcosmos. Everything flows smoothly and slowly. This music feels mellow and ripe. Like two sages singing about the essence of life. There is also a wistful component which doesn't come over as depressive at all. The unpretetentiousness and unobtrusiveness make this album so enchanting.

The drum machine fits perfectly into the songs especially in the magnificent Hurley. It doesn't matter that it is a machine. These songs are not really about rhythm. They are more about atmosphere created by the harmonies and the melody line which is often played by the bass.

Shallow or not isn't the question here. It is more can you resist beauty? Dan Perry said on an ILM thread that this is how he thought Coldplay sounded. Not the worst description. In any case this is how they should sound if they want to get my attention. How to move the listener without falling into the worst mannerism in male singing which is called falsetto. The only parallel to Coldplay is that the band name Pinback is a juxtaposition of two seemingly unrelated words. That is about the only thing I would reproach them.

A couple of songs: For the opener Tripoli please read the other short reviews below. Chaos Engine is a soft keyboard dominated lullaby with nicely accelerating programmed drums. The following track Shag is a change, a little rougher, more like Pavement. The whispered voices sing lyrics strongly contrasting to the still rather calm nature of the song:

Push the little baby down the spiral stairs

Lyon is a song which makes me think of my life. A sad song which can make me weep if I am in the right mood. Introspective and nostalgic. Looking back on life. Touching something very deep inside. Such a crappy keyboard but so beautiful. This cd is a trip. Crutch is almost ferocious after the magnificently slow Loro before. But a little too long. Two minutes would have been enough. A lot of repetiton, minimalism on this record. Rousseau is the most annoying track. But eleven out of twelve is a rarely reached hit and miss ratio. Byzantine is one of those songs I love to whistle to. To improvise on by whistling. It has a Western soundtrack quality. There is a shadow of Pavement again here.

I discovered Pinback via the ILM listening chambers which unfortunately don't exist anymore. The idea was to post an mp3 without naming the artist or song and the others would discuss on it without mentioning names if they knew them. A very good way to find about music you usually never listen to or don't know about. The song in the ILM listening chamber 9 was Tripoli, the album opener. Three views on this song which condensate Pinback's music much better than anything I could ever write about them:

Kim in the ILM listening chamber thread:

I haven't heard this particular song before, but it *must* involve a certain obscenely talented and prolific person, who has barely been heard of yet outside of certain circles. I say this because it bears all the hallmarks that initially caught my attention - the perfect harmonies, the restrained almost monotone vocals that are so oddly engaging, subtle grooves and irresistible rhythms that sway through the song. It's so good as to be almost a paradox - both warm and delicate at once, like a snowflake that never melts. This is the kind of music that I attach myself to for life. Thanks to the person that suggested this one.

Tom Ewing on NYLPM (March, 27th, 2000):

The real-life Pinback may be roisterous types, but when I hear Tripoli I think of saucer-eyed boys in basements making quiet sounds for themselves. With its mumbling vocals, with its humming-to-yourself harmonies and with the mousiest scratching I've ever heard, this is private music, in shelter from the world. Pinback, thank goodness, don't sound anywhere near proficient enough to noodle, which is the big risk post-pop runs, and the no-attitude vocal approach means the simple, pretty tune gets room to breathe. Of course you'll be underwhelmed the first time you listen to it, but hide it somewhere on an MP3 playlist and it'll charm you soon enough.

Pitchfork's Andrew Goldman in his review of the US release of the album:

Tripoli, Pinback's opening track, starts with the kind of drum massacre you'd expect from Modest Mouse. Then the voices enter-- two of them, to be precise. Two superb, soft, vibrato-less voices, free of Isaac Brock's snarl or Jeremy Enigk's affected accent. Voices singing about death and pushing babies down spiral stairs, conveying a gut-wrenching loneliness. Voices that make this album from beautiful start to beautiful finish. Hey, they're compelling voices. In fact, they're so compelling that it becomes easy to ignore the sweet humming of minimal keyboard lines, and guitar playing that occasionally drops hints of Enigk and Prewitt.

The now defunct westernhomes with a more critical approach concerning the album:

Unfortunately, after "Tripoli", Pinback don't really have any more surprises up their sleeves. Every tune on their debut uses the same trick -- two dueling singers, both with trademarked low-key, very slightly out-of-tune voices, simple little beats, guitar overdubs. The relatively underarranged "Loro" is a standout, with almost unbearably plaintive guitars and whispered singing in the grand sensitive-indie-boy tradition. Pinback have got their alternate tunings and gently-chiming progressions down pat, but their lyricism -- and sense of song development -- could use some work. None of the songs particularly go anywhere, and the two-singers device doesn't do enough to hide the fact that most of their lyrics are gibberish.

The AMG:

Pinback is one of those rare acts that remains at a slow-moving pace without containing an ounce of boredom...

Customer review at Amazon:

I humm these tunes in the shower. I sing them as I drive to work. I listen to them with headphones to start my day. Every single time I play this disc, either at work or at home, everyone wants to know who it is. It's infectious!!!

If you arrived to the end of this I can offer you a link to mp3s of 16 songs (#15 Victorious D is a broken link) Pinback performed live in San Diego on March, 23rd, 2002. Six of the twelve songs on This Is a Pinback CD are assembled there. Unfortunately three of my favourites (Crutch, Lyon and Byzantine) are missing. Other mp3 links: Versailles (pop-up alert), Loro and Chaos Engine.

And here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part IV was this post.

By the way the poll for 1972 has been closed. The winner was Nick Drake's Pink Moon which has been my favourite of that year for most of my life.

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[music, albums] December 2, 2002 at 8:48:44 PM CET

40 years, 40 albums: news

To make the navigation to the different reviews in this series easier I created an overview page. It is still quite empty with only three albums but I hope I can fill it up till my birthday, July, 14th. The year column links to the poll in which you dear readers have hopefully voted for your favourite. The album column links to my amateurish review and the last column titled RYM links to the top 100 albums as rated by the contributors to the rate your music site of said year. Everyone can become member there and review and rate albums.

I closed the 1980 poll. The overwhelming winner was Joy Division's Closer. JD fans should be patient. The band will be covered in the series though it won't be the album you are probably thinking of...

40 years, 40 albums is a good exercise for me to relisten to my old albums and reevaluate them. Actually listening to the 1999 stuff was another indication for me that I have too many records. Maybe I should start selling the ones I don't like anymore via Ebay. The most striking examples from 1999 I just listened to were Sigur Ros, Flaming Lips, Perry Blake, Smog, Spain and Radar Bros. A good rule for future buys would be to first sell an old album before buying a new one. Discipline is a discipline I have never been good at and I can definitely improve on.

Probably even better than selling old albums would be a cd exchange where people exchange second-hand cds. Does anyone know if a place like this exists? In case it didn't I guess it would be about time to create one on the interweb. The new economy will come back one day, you know.

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[music, albums] November 30, 2002 at 4:03:00 PM CET

40 years, 40 albums: overview

</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1179494/" title="poll">1986</td>
  <td>The Feelies</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1188242" title="review">The Good Earth</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1986">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1193883/" title="poll">1987</td>
  <td>The Smiths</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1197054/"title="review">The World Won't Listen</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1987">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/211408/" title="poll">1988</a></td>
  <td>Mary Margaret O'Hara</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/212353/" title="review">Miss America</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1988">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1122609/" title="poll">1989</a></td>
  <td>Pixies</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1128031/" title="review">Doolittle</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1989">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1152456/" title="poll">1990</a></td>
  <td>The House of Love</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1156487/" title="review">"Butterfly"</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1990">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/988091/" title="poll">1991</td>
  <td>Smashing Pumpkins</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/993832" title="review">Gish</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1991">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1170267/" title="poll">1992</td>
  <td>Sonic Youth</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1177712/" title="review">Dirty</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1992">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1037604" title="poll">1993</td>
  <td>Idaho</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1041068" title="review">Year after Year</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1993">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/978438/" title="poll">1994</td>
  <td>Swell</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/981382/" title="review">41</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1994">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1050974/" title="poll">1995</td>
  <td>Sparklehorse</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1054721/" title="review">Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1995">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1085634/" title="poll">1996</td>
  <td>Cowboy Junkies</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1095772/" title="review">Lay It Down</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1996">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1010587/" title="poll">1997</a></td>
  <td>Robert Wyatt</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1022272/" title="review">Shleep</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1997">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1129244/" title="poll">1998</a></td>
  <td>Cat Power</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1133632/" title="review">Moon Pix</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1998">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/221237/" title="poll">1999</a></td>
  <td>Pinback</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/228476/">This Is a Pinback CD</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_1999">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1146086/" title="poll">2000</a></td>
  <td>Aimee Mann</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1151851/">Bachelor No. 2</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_2000">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/248563/" title="poll">2001</a></td>
  <td>Radiohead</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/258512/">Amnesiac</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_2001">top 100</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><a href="/stories/1162523/"title="poll">2002</a></td>
  <td>Lambchop</td>
  <td><a href="/stories/1166159/">Is a Woman</a></td>
  <td><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/year_is_2002">top 100</a></td>
</tr>

Year	Artist	Title	RYM
1963	Stan Getz and João Gilberto	Getz/Gilberto	top 100
1964	Tony Scott	Music for Zen Meditation	top 100
1965	John Coltrane	Ascension	top 100
1966	Bob Dylan	Blonde on Blonde	top 100
1967	Velvet Underground	The Velvet Underground & Nico	top 100
1968	The Beatles	White Album	top 100
1969	Nick Drake	Five Leaves Left	top 100
1970	Neil Young	After the Gold Rush	top 100
1971	Joni Mitchell	Blue	top 100
1972	Roxy Music	Roxy Music	top 100
1973	Pink Floyd	Dark Side of the Moon	top 100
1974	Steve Reich	Drumming	top 100
1975	Brian Eno	Another Green World	top 100
1976	Keith Jarrett	Sun Bear Concerts	top 100
1977	Brian Eno	Before and after Science	top 100
1978	Pere Ubu	The Modern Dance	top 100
1979	Joy Division	Unknown Pleasures	top 100
1980	The Cure	Seventeen Seconds	top 100
1981	Wipers	Youth of America	top 100
1982	Brian Eno	On Land	top 100
1983	Meat Puppets	II	top 100
1984	Lloyd Cole & the Commotions	Rattlesnakes	top 100
1985	Lloyd Cole & the Commotions	Easy Pieces	top 100

RYM = Rate Your Music website

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[music, albums] November 29, 2002 at 7:54:00 PM CET

III: 1980 The Cure - Seventeen Seconds

Before relistening to any album from 1980 The Cure's second longplay intuitively was my first choice. But when I had heard the three contending records (#3 was Joy Division's Closer) for a moment it was Fehlfarben's Monarchie und Alltag. I have to agree to what many German critics say about this release. That it is the best German rock album. But sometimes this is not enough. Under normal circumstances the result of a serious match England-Germany in rock music is as predictable as in football. The outcomes of those two games are quite opposite though. 1980 wasn't an exception to the rule.

Many fans consider Pornography or Disintegration the pinnacle of The Cure's art but I cannot agree. I never really got into Pornography. Too many songs which lose me. Last time I heard Disintegration I found it hadn't aged well. Something about the production repelled me. Seventeen Seconds is my favourite of theirs. For me it somehow conjures up shadows of the past. It is about the lightness of being sad. And it has the most mysterious title of all their records. I advise you to listen to it in the dark. The impact is much stronger that way.

Keyboards sounding like a jew's harp start the first track and fuse into a simple slow theme played by the guitar and the piano setting the atmosphere of the record. Dark but not heavy almost like a piano piece by an English Satie A Reflection engraves itself on the memory of the listener. A minimal opener preparing us softly for things to come.

Play for Today has already all ingredients of a good upbeat Cure song. A bass forming the base, propelling lively guitars, some spacy synthie, hypnotic drum beats and Robert Smith's unique sombre high-pitch but not whining vocals. And it is so tuneful, so pop. The Cure were the Beatles of dark wave (I don't like the term goth rock). Sounding as fresh now as then. The first highlight.

Secrets is dominated by a simple bass line and is a very rhythmic affair. An impressionist track serving as a transition to the next piece.

In Your House is very heavy, Smith sounds extremely tired. A hint to future ominous musical developments. Like pretending to be deep and profound. This is the first Cure song which sucks a little. Many more were to come later on in their career. Until there was nothing else. Until Robert Smith would sound like a ridiculous parody of himself. But even in this rather dull song there are bits which almost save it. The end is a release when there are only synthie, meandering guitar and drum machine left.

The two instrumentals (except Smith background radio voice) following are rather weird. I love them though. Experimental, almost atonal, mounting the tension and leading directly to the heart of this album:

A Forest. One of the best songs of all time. Starting slowly with the theme repeated a couple of times by the acoustic guitar with brooding synthie sounds and suddenly accelerating to an irresistible beat when the drums and finally the bass kicks in. Nobody can stop this hypnotic trip into the night. Dark power pure.

And did you ever listen to the lyrics? I did before but I never really got the meaning. It seems clear now. They are about hopelessly falling in love. Told from the point of view of the guy of course. He runs after the girl without paying attention to the outside world. He only sees her or thinks he sees her. And suddenly he realises that he is lost. In the forest. And she isn’t there. He has been chasing a phantom. He didn’t fall in love with her but with his picture of her. And now he is on his own, lost in the forest. Running towards nothing. And he will do it again and again and again and again.

It’s difficult to think of a bigger contrast to the black (without the 'and white') A Forest than the following song with the obscure title M. We are almost back in sunny pop country now. The guitar jangles, the synthie wooshes like the ocean waves, there is hope. Beauty still exists. And

You’ll fall in love with somebody else Again tonight

Can there be a better succession of songs than A Forest and M in the world?

At Night is the abyss. It can’t get more desperate anymore. A weighty song which works though.

I sink in the night Standing alone underneath the sky I feel the chill of ice On my face

At the end some improvisations on the theme promise a brighter future.

Seventeen Seconds is a serene finish. The world is still sad but we have accepted it. Though I didn’t get it yet:

Seventeen seconds A measure of life

Some mysteries should remain...

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[music, albums] November 21, 2002 at 2:08:00 AM CET

II: 1988 Mary Margaret O'Hara - Miss America

Mary Margaret O'Hara's Miss America is one of those albums I discovered by pure accident. I think it was January 1989 and I was in the huge media store Saturn Hansa near the Theresienwiese where the Oktoberfest takes place in Munich. Lou Reed's New York album was advertised everywhere and I don't remember what I was looking for. The music they played immediately caught my attention. Or more precisely the woman singing on that record. I asked what it was and bought the vinyl (I didn't have a cd player and I don't think it was available on cd anyway) instantly. It was love at first sight. An experience I find very hard to describe.

The music was somewhere in between jazz, classical improvisation, country and God knows what. As I would have liked Joni Mitchell who had already turned into a boring mainstream pop-rock imitator to be. Mary Margaret O'Hara's voice was a girl's voice similar to Rickie Lee Jones's though less so. O'Hara's way of singing is (sorry I have to change the tense now) absolutely unique. It is all about the intonation, the melody of the phrasing, the strange breaks and drawls in the pronunciation of the syllables. She cuts and breaks them and gives them an individual sound like few other singers. If you really want a reference point the only one in terms of emotion I can offer is Billie Holiday. Though it is obvious that O'Hara is a trained singer she transports a sincerity and expressiveness few singers ever matched till then. Substract the exaggerated opera timbre of Jeff Buckley and you will get close to her.

Not only her voice is absolutely stunning but also the words she sings. It all starts with:

You take a walk I'll be your side You take my life I'll give you mine And you ... you give me something To cry about

and it goes on

You're in my heart I'm in your hand You drop me off I miss you and ... you, You give me something To cry about

That is so to the point that it hurts.

Not all songs are as depressive as the first one. There is the seemingly relaxed countryesque Dear Darling which goes

Why would you run? I beg stars above A thing of such beauty Must be called love

which is followed by the swinging almost groovy hopeful Anew Day. The next quite sombre song When You Know Why You're Happy really speaks to me (I am 1.95 meters = 6 feet 5 tall)

You move much better than you know Not just some jerky to and fro

Musically my favourite song on the album is the first track on side 2, the upbeat My Friends Have. It goes on with the downbeat rather sad Help Me Lift You Up where she sings

I don't have to tell you That you're all alone... I have a dream It's very clear You're all around But never near Help me lift you up

Keeping You in Mind is a relaxed serene ballad without illusions:

But if our love is all for not I'm still happy with what I've got Not having you, But keeping you in mind

After a long free flowing song the album ends with the almost a cappella (bass & her voice) You Will Be Loved Again where O'Hara exhibits all her vocal capabilities:

Sometime you will Feel love so deep And you'll find someone Not lost in sleep

Sorry that I wasn't able to give you any clue about this album. I guess you have to listen to it yourself.

The new cover has changed colours. The beige yellow has turned into black and the black scripting changed into blue. Obviously this was not for the better. I also noticed that I have to rethink my approach concerning recording years as this album was recorded in 1984 which wouldn't make any sense in this exercise. Therefore I will consider release years in 40 years, 40 albums from now on.

By the way Mary Margaret O'Hara has released her second album this year, the soundtrack Apartment Hunting.

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[music, albums] November 19, 2002 at 11:14:28 PM CET

First impressions of recent purchases

Mississippi John Hurt - The Complete Studio Recordings 3 CDs This really calms me down. So relaxing and uplifting. The mellowest folk blues I can think of. The subtlest guitar playing technique of any bluesman. John Fahey got his fingerpicking style from Mr Hurt.

Klaus Schulze - 2001 I can't think of any electronic music except Boards of Canada I ever loved. But there are some tracks on this selection which click with me. Especially impressionistic pieces like e.g. Gewitter, the beginning of Blanche or Crystal Lake. I don't like it when Schulze takes himself for the Wagner of electronic music like in Ludwig II. von Bayern.

The The - Disinfected I listened to this once and haven't made my mind up yet. It seems an album that takes some time to sink in. No really outstanding tunes and rhythms like on Mind Bomb. I think I will like it after the next two listens.

Comsat Angels – My Mind's Eye I didn't know this band from Sheffield at all and was very positively surprised by this album from the early 90s. Andy Kellman gave me the idea to check them out. I don't remember if it was in his now closed blog Permafrost or in the AMG. The next fave band of Andy on my discovery list is Bark Psychosis now. My Mind's Eye is dark melodic rock. Quite powerful with addictive tunes. Somehow it makes sense to me that they originated in the early new wave.

Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump limited edition 2 CDs I listened to this once and I liked what I heard though I wasn't overwhelmed. The most obvious influence seems to be Pavement. Though Grandaddy's music is less abrasive and lighter. The drones by the Dandy Warhols aren't too far neither. Soft & sunny central Californian psychedelia.

Hayden – Skyscraper National Park The guitar in the beginning of this album really made me think this was a lost album by Neil Young. A bluesy occasionally slightly distorted rock guitar with a folk feel. Hayden's voice is different from Young's but it is strange as well. It is not really a good singing voice, too raspy. But this album is very good. Definitely in my top ten this year. Simple with haunting impressive melodies. Only reproach: it is a little on the short side.

Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas I didn't yet listen to more than two songs of this. I liked those songs and I am 100% confident that Mr Darnielle is not going to disappoint me. We are talking about rather primitive and rough sounding songwriter stuff here.

Neu! - 75 I almost regretted the purchase of this album immediately after the first listen. Compared to the first Neu! album this is so smoothly produced and unidimensional. I find it plain boring.

No-Man – Returning Jesus Another let-down. No-Man sound like Talk Talk with Mark Almond singing plus a very uninspired production. I don't like the schmaltzy voice, I don't like the rather foreseeable synth-heavy arrangements, I don't like the weak tunes. Maybe it will grow on me but I seriously doubt it.

Rocket from the Tombs – The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs Great proto-punk from Cleveland, Ohio. Besides David Thomas and Peter Laughner the other two members of the band sing as well. First I thought the Satisfaction cover was a little too short but then I realised that 10 seconds are more than enough. Stand-out tracks are Sonic Reducer, 30 Seconds over Tokyo and Final Solution. There is not a second wasted on this washed-out nugget from 1975.

Sonic Youth & ICP & The EX - In the Fishtank Free-jazzy, improvisational, difficult stuff. It would have been published within the experimental SYR series if it hadn't been part of the fishtank band encounters. I don't understand why I still continue to buy all these Sonic Youth albums when I never listen to them. Obsessed by one of all-time's greatest indie bands I guess.

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[music, albums] November 14, 2002 at 11:31:00 PM CET

I: 1972 Roxy Music - Roxy Music

Next year in exactly eight months time is my 40th birthday. A couple of weeks ago I had the idea to prepare my inner self for this shock by reviewing my favourite albums from 1963-2002 with the restriction of choosing one album per year. It is a way of looking back at my past life in terms of the music I listened to and I still love. As I didn't listen to music in 1963 for example I will always pick my current favourite. I am not sure if I will succeed in finishing this "project" until July, 14th, I would have to make an entry every six days or so till then, but I hope with posting my first choice for 1972 I will put myself enough under pressure to reach the finish of this little music marathon.

There will be no rules concerning the order of the years I will choose. To start with 1972 turned out to be quite a challenge as it was probably one of the most exciting years in the history of pop music. Just look at Piero Scaruffi's list with 90 records of which I don't even know the top spot: Klaus Schulze's Irrlicht. I own 33 albums (CD, LP or tape) recorded in 1972. And about six of them have been favourites of mine from that year at one point of my life (the years are approximate):

1976 Genesis - Foxtrot
1980 Nick Drake - Pink Moon
1987 Neil Young - Harvest
1990 Rolling Stones - Exile in on Main Street
2002 Neu! - Neu!

But my current favourite and that is what all this is about is Roxy Music's first self-titled album.

There are bands I've been getting into almost instantly at first listen like Velvet Underground or The Smiths and there are others which took me a long time to appreciate. Like Joy Division Roxy Music belong into this group.

My first audio encounter with their singer and main songwriter Bryan Ferry dates back to the summer of 1976. It was the first time I was in a foreign country without my parents and I was in Bournemouth in a guest family. Two songs were everywhere in that very dry & hot English summer: Let's Stick Together by Ferry and Here Comes the Sun by Cockney Rebel. I liked both of them and didn't realize for a long time that Here Comes the Sun was a Beatles cover. Ferry's sleazy crooner's voice was hard to resist and he was good looking too which could impress a thirteen year old.

But somehow for a long time I had a problem to connect the pop singer Ferry to the more experimental and challenging band Roxy Music which was lauded in music critics circles. And I didn't understand what was so special about them. I don't remember the name of the first song by them I ever listened to and it didn't mark me at all but I know that it was in my philosophy class at school around 1979 (our teacher was young). The class was about existentialism and the teacher said that this song was new wave.

Let's come back to my album of 1972. The cover is the first in a series of sexily dressed women covers. Mauvais goût but in an interesting way. All the women on the first five albums of Roxy Music have in common that they have a stupid artificial expression on their face and that from my point of view their faces are ugly in their false and unapproachable coolness. I suppose that is intended. This is part of the game. It is not the cover that is supposed to turn anyone on. It is just an eye-catcher. A false package if you want. Inside there is one of the most ear-catching records of the seventies. At least it turned me on but it took a long time.

There is a party going on. People talking, tinkling glasses. A seemingly average rock song starts with a kind of bar piano line. Ferry sings forgettable lyrics about the sweetest queen he has ever seen. With his staccato intonation he sounds like the blueprint for David Byrne in the Talking Heads. Phil Manzanera tries to be Jimi Hendrix and he almost succeeds. And suddenly the song takes a turn. The saxophone becomes freestyle, there is some guitar distortion, the piano becomes atonal, the song morphs into a free jazz session. It slows down at the end like as if the record player is plugged off and the speed is slowing down. A nice drum solo and a fireworks noise finish the song.

A lyrical classical oboe theme starts Ladytron. A song for romantic candle-light dinners. But beware this one speeds up. Never trust the beginning of a Roxy Music song. Eno adds some electronic spices to this.

My favourite song is no.3 If There Is Something. The first 90 seconds constitute about the most boring country rock ballad I have ever heard. But when Andy Mackay's sax and later oboe join in and play a new theme everything changes. Suddenly we are in melodramatic land. Ferry sings vibrato as if he had swallowed one gallon of his own tears:

I would do anything for you. I would climb mountai-ai-ai-ns. I would swim all the oceans blue.

The theme is repeated by the piano and varied upon. It is really fascinating how the guitar also merges in. All instruments seem to fuse into one. The oboe is reaching heights where no man has ever been. Ferry almost drowns in his tears now. How can a voice sound so desperate from deep inside? The last minute is a tad boring again with the over and over repeated line When you were young but the four minutes in between 1'30'' and 5'30'' are about the most exciting four minutes in any piece of rock I know.

Marginal note: I just read here in the AMG that there is a probably even superior 12 minute (!) live version of this song performed at the John Peel radio show in January 1972. I really need this now.

The next song is Virginia Plain and I think I'll finish now as everyone will know this anyway. As sparkling as rock music can get. I have to add that there is no weak song on this album. That there are two small rock mini-operas The Bob (Medley) and Sea Breeze which piss on Supper's Ready or anything released by The Who in this field. 2 H.B. and the beginning of The Bob foreshadow ambient. And there is Would You Believe? which anticipates the dreadful Rocky Horror Picture Show without its one-dimensionality. The end is Bitters End, the party is over, the girl is gone and has found another and Bryan asks

will someone find me?

This was a party as it should be. It was fun but it was a disappointment as well. A good pretext for another party, don't you think?

Maybe tomorrow Pink Moon will be my 1972 favourite again but today it is Roxy Music.

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[music, albums] November 1, 2002 at 12:05:19 AM CET

Beck is not Beck

I wrote about Beck's new album Sea Change just yesterday that it is very much influenced by two songwriters from the 70s. But when I heard Round the Bend on the radio tonight I couldn't believe my ears. I had heard a string section playing that understated atmospheric tune before. Though it was less pronounced and not as thickly arranged as here. It was in Nick Drake's River Man from his first album Five Leaves Left. Beck even tries to sing like Drake. I like his version of Drake's song especially the cosmic radiance it has, the wide space it conjures up. But I find it extremely shameless by Beck to pretend it his song. He should at least have written in the liner notes by whom it was inspired. By the way the radio deejay had also noticed that those two songs were very similar and played them next to another.

Beck's new album is a cover album. The ~~first~~ second song Paper Tiger is a take on Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg. The overall mood is very similar to Neil Young's Harvest though the album lacks the gorgeous melancholic melodies. Another good song on the album It's All in Your Mind also sounds familiar to me though I cannot yet nail by whom it is. Have you got an idea? Two hints: search in between 1969 and 1972, maybe +- two years and check Beck's iPod (New York Times, I am not sure if registration is still required).

Don't get me wrong. I don't think it is a bad album and I would love to hear it played in a pub by chance. But probably not more than two songs as the album doesn't seem to have enough substance to be listened to in one sitting. Many songs just meander along and fail to catch my attention.

I still can't exclude that I will change my mind tomorrow and that the record is a grower but up till now I am not too convinced. The best song is the Nick Drake cover and that says a lot about the originality and honesty of Beck. In a way it makes me doubt how much he actually feels the songs he performs. He seems a great actor and pretender but I am not sure anymore if he is a great artist.

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[music, albums] October 25, 2002 at 10:31:15 PM CEST

Mein blutiger Schatz

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