Re: Alternative Editions of Contemporary Music.
Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 9:16 pm
Can't wait to hear it properly when it finally arrives.....
10/10 Jim from Norman Records:
I really hoped this was going to be a load of shite. There was something so predictably laudable about the fallen angel of easy-listening pop teaming up with the group who’d helped drag underground metal into the light of critical approval that I couldn’t help willing the venture to fail miserably. The fact that the usual channels of hype went into delirious overdrive in slathering anticipation of such an odd yet somehow logical union only increased my antipathy towards the whole thing.
It’s not that I dislike either of the artists involved either: Scott Walker’s transition from pop’s most depressed crooner to ever inhabit a bed of luxuriant arrangements, to a kind of dark avatar haunting some of the most starkly disconcerting soundscapes this side of Xenakis is undeniably compelling. Likewise, who could ever deny the uniquely intense sonic physicality of Sunn O))) live, where you can literally feel every torturous dissonance coursing through your body? So I guess my misgivings had more to do with Stephen O’Malley and co.’s increasing ubiquity, as well as the fact that Walker’s defection from popular success to avant garde difficultness is all too often invoked as a pathological move; a kind of small victory for the losers.
And so it pains me slightly to have to report that ‘Soused’ is as annoyingly brilliant as all the hype merchants predicted. Just before I came to reviewing it I was warned that the opener almost threatens to break into ‘Sweet Child O Mine’. Which it does, with Walker’s baritone unusually expansive over gospely organs and the suggestive melody of a cock-rockish lead guitar. But this alarmingly light-filled intro soon gives way to a deliciously dense drone, menacingly adorned with stroboscopic helicopter rotors and rhythmical whip-cracks, as Walker’s sings in melancholy rapture about ‘a beating’ that will do him ‘ a world of good’.
The thing that’s so arresting about this opening track, and the album as a whole, is the vividness and originality of the arrangements. The bosun’s whistle that sounds forlornly across the desolate backing gives the track an almost martial feel, while the whiplash rhythm is just genius, particularly for a track that was inspired by Marlon Brando’s penchant for roles that repeatedly involved taking one hell of a hiding. And so we see there’s even a perverse sense of humour lurking beneath the po-faced gravitas, because let’s face it: masochistic desire is something that fans of either Sunn O))) or Walker’s late work should be able to relate to.
The second track, ‘Herod’ is every bit as epic as its title suggests. It starts with the monotonous ringing of a bell, like the sounding of the alarm in a medieval village as a pillaging horde approaches. Then we have the electronic rotor blades again, ushering in a more aggressive drone that's punctuated with an unfathomably brutish, doomladen motif. Elsewhere in the mix we have low stretched-out moans and the primitive screams of what sound like baby elephants being hacked to death. And in the midst of all this Walker relates some of his darkest poetry yet; singing about a mother hiding away her children from some imminent mortal threat, which shifts during the course of the song’s twelve minutes from Herod’s infanticidal army, to a Stasi ‘goon’ and even disease carrying flies- a horrifying scenario that is not very far removed from events we can see reported on our television screens every night. And again, it’s the visionary brilliance of the arrangements that makes the track so potent, plunging the listener into a series of starkly contrasting pools of sound; from the biblical savagery of the opening verse to taut stillness, pulsating womb music, screaming pandemonium and back again.
The three remaining tracks of the album are just as startling and rich, giving a sense that, as with all of Walker’s mature stuff, this is an album you could dig deep into and still come back to it in years and find new surprises. But most surprising of all is the fact that, despite the intimidating reputation of the artists involved, the album is so artfully constructed that it never feels like an endurance test.
10/10 Jim from Norman Records:
I really hoped this was going to be a load of shite. There was something so predictably laudable about the fallen angel of easy-listening pop teaming up with the group who’d helped drag underground metal into the light of critical approval that I couldn’t help willing the venture to fail miserably. The fact that the usual channels of hype went into delirious overdrive in slathering anticipation of such an odd yet somehow logical union only increased my antipathy towards the whole thing.
It’s not that I dislike either of the artists involved either: Scott Walker’s transition from pop’s most depressed crooner to ever inhabit a bed of luxuriant arrangements, to a kind of dark avatar haunting some of the most starkly disconcerting soundscapes this side of Xenakis is undeniably compelling. Likewise, who could ever deny the uniquely intense sonic physicality of Sunn O))) live, where you can literally feel every torturous dissonance coursing through your body? So I guess my misgivings had more to do with Stephen O’Malley and co.’s increasing ubiquity, as well as the fact that Walker’s defection from popular success to avant garde difficultness is all too often invoked as a pathological move; a kind of small victory for the losers.
And so it pains me slightly to have to report that ‘Soused’ is as annoyingly brilliant as all the hype merchants predicted. Just before I came to reviewing it I was warned that the opener almost threatens to break into ‘Sweet Child O Mine’. Which it does, with Walker’s baritone unusually expansive over gospely organs and the suggestive melody of a cock-rockish lead guitar. But this alarmingly light-filled intro soon gives way to a deliciously dense drone, menacingly adorned with stroboscopic helicopter rotors and rhythmical whip-cracks, as Walker’s sings in melancholy rapture about ‘a beating’ that will do him ‘ a world of good’.
The thing that’s so arresting about this opening track, and the album as a whole, is the vividness and originality of the arrangements. The bosun’s whistle that sounds forlornly across the desolate backing gives the track an almost martial feel, while the whiplash rhythm is just genius, particularly for a track that was inspired by Marlon Brando’s penchant for roles that repeatedly involved taking one hell of a hiding. And so we see there’s even a perverse sense of humour lurking beneath the po-faced gravitas, because let’s face it: masochistic desire is something that fans of either Sunn O))) or Walker’s late work should be able to relate to.
The second track, ‘Herod’ is every bit as epic as its title suggests. It starts with the monotonous ringing of a bell, like the sounding of the alarm in a medieval village as a pillaging horde approaches. Then we have the electronic rotor blades again, ushering in a more aggressive drone that's punctuated with an unfathomably brutish, doomladen motif. Elsewhere in the mix we have low stretched-out moans and the primitive screams of what sound like baby elephants being hacked to death. And in the midst of all this Walker relates some of his darkest poetry yet; singing about a mother hiding away her children from some imminent mortal threat, which shifts during the course of the song’s twelve minutes from Herod’s infanticidal army, to a Stasi ‘goon’ and even disease carrying flies- a horrifying scenario that is not very far removed from events we can see reported on our television screens every night. And again, it’s the visionary brilliance of the arrangements that makes the track so potent, plunging the listener into a series of starkly contrasting pools of sound; from the biblical savagery of the opening verse to taut stillness, pulsating womb music, screaming pandemonium and back again.
The three remaining tracks of the album are just as startling and rich, giving a sense that, as with all of Walker’s mature stuff, this is an album you could dig deep into and still come back to it in years and find new surprises. But most surprising of all is the fact that, despite the intimidating reputation of the artists involved, the album is so artfully constructed that it never feels like an endurance test.