ALBUM Reviews
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ALBUM H Reviews such, Salutations features the ian Perfume wherein Thomas 10 songs of that last long jettisons his trademark player fleshed out by a band maniacal yelping in favour of that includes The Felice an eerily effective, Tom Brothers and drummer Jim Waits-esque narrative. Also Keltner, plus cameos from the above par are ’02’s St likes of Maria Taylor, M Ward Arkansas which welcomes and Gillian Welch (among original Ubu guitarist Tom many others), as well as Herman back into the fold seven other songs. and Back Roads: a mercurial It’s ironic, then, that collection of outtakes’ n’ Salutations is the weaker oddities which countenances album. Yet it was the the hypnotic, Krautrock-y My tentative, sad fragility of those Name Is Ellipsis but also demos that gave them their condones Thomas’ heinous immense power and the desecration of Brian Wilson’s sense of pure truth that – as Surfer Girl. Tim Peacock Bright Eyes, with Real Estate: several Desaparecidos or as a solo shades of blue artist – epitomises Oberst’s best work. With these band musically varied he could be. detractors all the ammunition hydrophone fleets to fully versions, Oberst seems more Hannah Vettese they needed. Chris Reed sang exploit marine environs as removed, drowned out by in an ominous, Eldritch-esque a mode for alien musical unnecessary country Real Estate baritone; they had a exploration. embellishments that only In Mind malevolent drum machine Conversely, this welcome dilute the passion and HHHH and they hailed from Leeds, reissue (Desert Tracks emotion of the originals. Domino WIG 378 (CD/LP) so perhaps it’s inevitable they originally surfaced in 1988 on That’s not to say these are Dream poppers’ fourth were dismissed as goth the pioneering INA-GRM bad – Tachycardia and and finest also-rans. imprint) sees him ride dry, Gossamer Thin remain Gerry Rafferty For their fourth album, Albums & Singles 1982- swapping swimsuit for keffiyeh poignant and powerful, and Can I Have My Money mellow Brooklyn-based dream 1989, however, suggests that on a scorched earth trail the fraught Dylan-esque Back? poppers Real Estate find label was grossly inaccurate. through Californian deserts – Napalm (one of the new HHHH themselves on perhaps their Reed and guitarist David Mojave, Death Valley, Palm songs) is an interesting Esoteric/Cherry Red ECLEC 2574 (CD) finest form to date. Propelled Wolfenden frequently cited Canyon – his microphones experiment in hero-worship – What does Gerry Rafferty by a slight shift in line-up – the MC5 as their primary picking up supernatural but they just aren’t quite as call a hot cross bun? A not to mention main man influence, while this silences en route, a series of heart-stoppingly, baker’s treat, boom boom Martin Courtney settling into comprehensive reissue of unsettling, chasm-like heartbreakingly brilliant. Less, Let’s address the life as a new dad – there’s a virtually their entire oeuvre absences punctuated by as it turns out, can be much bespectacled, shaggy-haired sprightliness to these 11 reveals the Lorries had far lonesome birdcalls and wind- more. Mischa Pearlman elephant in the room: yes, songs that was largely absent more in common with Wire turbine-trawled sand shuffles. he wrote Baker Street. Yes, in the tempered folk-rock of and Joy Division than the Redolfi creates a near Pere Ubu he also wrote Stuck In The their previous three records. Batcave brigade. poly-sensorial fantasia Drive, He Said Middle With You. At this point Opener Darling’s Cherry Red’s previous charged with phantom atoms, 1994-2002 you’ve either grimaced at the melancholy, lazy lilt and retrospective See The Fire crystalline schisms and HHHH memory or rolled your eyes. glossy production give a concentrated on RLYL’s early disembodied voice. The bell- Fire FIRE 469 (4LP) If it’s the latter it’s because slowed-down nod – Red Rhino releases. These clattering entrance of freight Father cannot yell? you’re canny enough to know intentional or otherwise – to same discs – morose, but cars rattling across the Santa Architecture Of Language, the that Gerry Rafferty is much Dire Straits’ Walk Of Life, compelling debut Talk About Fe railroad echo like Jacob second instalment in Fire’s more than those two tunes. down to that song’s The Weather; visceral follow- Marley’s afterlife travelling on comprehensive Pere Ubu On this, his debut solo distinctive, defining riff. Of up Paint Your Wagon and one of Chris Watson’s Mexican reissue campaign concluded release, Rafferty offered up course, there’s a sliver of mandatory non-LP 45s such ghost trains. with 1982’s Song of the an impressive array of sounds Real Estate’s trademark as Monkeys On Juice and And if that seems a tad Bailing Man, so this third that bridged the gap between nostalgia present, too, but it Spinning Around – are all nightmarish, you can always four-disc opus should logically his previous folk creations takes a bit more time to reprised here, yet Albums luxuriate in the meditative revisit the band’s major label- with The Humblebums manifest on this record. & Singles… also widens the splendour of bonus track, Too backed era from the late 80s (alongside Billy Connolly) Instead, on the likes of After net to snag the Lorries’ Much Sky, a Max Eastley-like and early 90s. and the smoother sounds of The Moon and the mild, Situation Two-sponsored weave of Aeolian harp strings However, for unspecified his follow up album, the pastoral chug of Diamond releases from the late 80s. and silver-tongued sci-fi reasons, Drive, He Said… commercially successful City Eyes, there’s an overt sense Though still edgy, 1988’s beam-me-ups. Spencer Grady leapfrogs ahead to the mid- To City. of hope, warmth and Nothing Wrong inches 90s: a productive chapter in It is, quite frankly, satisfaction. With that comes towards mainstream rock, Max Richter Ubu history wherein David nonsense that his an energy that combines while ’89’s underrated Blow Three Worlds: Music Thomas recruited his band’s discography has been so winningly with the band’s is further enhanced by From Woolf Works present day line-up and his overlooked, when he heightened sense of purpose. keyboards and a live HHHH legendary Ohio outfit reverted continually produced great Stained Glass and Same Sun drummer. Overlooked while Deutsche Grammophon back to indie sponsorship. songs. There’s the beautiful are the two exceptions. Both Madchester was on the rise, 4796953 (CD/LP) They lack the hip cachet Mary Skeffington, a delicate, songs lack that extra it sold poorly, yet it houses Head on down to of the band’s early classics, Celtic ode to his mother; the dynamic, and instead plod the impassioned You Are the woods today but the titles Ubu issued wry cynicism of Sign On The along in somewhat tepid one- Everything and the militant, In 2015 pianist and composer during this period are overdue Dotted Line, written with dimensionality. Somehow, Clash-like West Wakes Up Max Richter made a most reappraisal; not least 1995’s future Stealers’ Wheel though, that doesn’t break and it remains ripe for irregular mainstream crossover confident Ray Gun Suitcase collaborator Joe Egan; the the dreamy, wistful spell of rediscovery. Tim Peacock with a classical work, SLEEP. which includes the strident perfect use of bass and organ the album as a whole. The “cradle song” struck (or Memphis and muscular My on Long Way Round; and the Mischa Pearlman Michel Redolfi perhaps gently massaged) Friend Is A Stooge and warm steel guitar of Didn’t I? Desert Tracks a chord with audiences who’d generally harks back to the that accentuates Rafferty’s Red Lorry Yellow HHH normally go nowhere near linear pop sensibilities of gorgeously soft vocals. Lorry Sub Rosa SR 418 (CD/LP) classical recitals, and was all ’89’s Fontana-sanctioned Included here in the Albums & Singles 1982- Mirage music the more amazing when you Cloudland. Esoteric/Cherry Red remaster 1989 French co-founder of the consider it was eight hours Though a shade gnarlier, is bonus song So Bad HHHH experimental Marseille-based long in full. ’98’s Pennsylvania features Thinking – the B-side to the Cherry Red CRCDMBOX 32 (4CD) collective GMEM, Michael With Three Worlds he the fabulously itchy, 7” release of the title track, Ain’t that a lorry love? Redolfi, is arguably best takes what could be Beefheart-esque Fly’s Eye and which again, only serves to Red Lorry Yellow Lorry known for his subaquatic considered an even more the evocative, David Lynch- remind you of just how inadvertently offered their symphonies, deep-sinking his abstract or highbrow topic – Photo (Real Estate): Shawn Brackbill 96 Record Collector New AlbumsUSE.indd 96 15/02/2017 11:10:42.