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Although not quite the equal of "Song to a Siren", they saw a lot of potential, and eventually Lynch and Badalamenti teamed up to write and produce an album for Julee Cruise. Lynch wrote the lyrics and guided the sound, and Badalamenti filled out the sound with his excellent ear for composition. The classic album "Falling Into the Night" is a pop treasure, combining 1950s rockabilly guitar with darkly atmospheric synthesized strings and Cruise's angelic, overdubbed vocals. The Lynch/Balamenti/Cruise collaboration went on for several years, and the songs ended up in Lynch's "Twin Peaks" and Wim Wenders "Until the End of the World". There was a follow up album a couple of years later, 'Voice of Love'. It wasn't nearly as good, but it still captured the sound that had originally inspired Lynch/Badalementi. They even built a huge rock-opera spectacle around Julee Cruise, 1989's "Industrial Symphony No. 1".
Not satisfied to wait for Lynch and Badalamenti to write her another album, Julee has chosen a different group of collaborators to work with for her new album 'The Art of Being a Girl.' If anyone had any questions about how much input Julee had into her music all these years, this album should clear everything up. She had no input at all. Lynch/Badalamenti were using Julee as an instrument, a breathy "little-girl-lost" voice to accompany their atmospheric tracks. This is the first album where Julee has co-written songs, and it is an incredibly average affair. Her collaborators (Mocean Worker, Khan and some guy named J.J. McGeehan), have used a lot of trite studio tricks in an attempt to distract the listener from the fact that the songs are boring. Julee makes the error of trying to recreate herself as some kind of world-wise feminist diva. It feels really forced, and the album sounds like every other downtempo "sexy" electronic pop album with faceless female vocals.
Several of the tracks attempt to mimic Julee's guest star turn on Khan's awesome track "Say Goodbye" from last year's 'No Comprendo'; none of them live up to these aspirations. The compositions are tired and riddled with cliché. The laughable, non-sexy spoken word segments in many of the songs don't help at all. As a final insult, there is a hidden track, a new version of one of Julee's best songs from the Lynch/Badalamenti years, "Falling" (recognizable to many as the opening theme of Twin Peaks). This tepid version adds nothing to the original song, and it just serves as a reminder of how great the song sounded when it was in the hands of more talented collaborators. Julee Cruise's talent is serviceable in the proper context, when the songwriting and production is top-notch. However, this underachieving album pales in comparison to her previous work as a bit player in the grand Lynchian musical drama.
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This memorable live collaboration between one of the world's most explosive drummers and a titan of the UK jazz scene bizarrely came about from a random meeting at an airport in Portugal during Corsano's lengthy tour with Björk. As expected, the result is some absolutely incendiary free-jazz flame-throwing, but with some unexpected surprises thrown in too.
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This memorable live collaboration between one of the world’s most explosive drummers and a titan of the UK jazz scene bizarrely came about from a random meeting at an airport in Portugal during Corsano’s lengthy tour with Björk. As expected, the result is some absolutely incendiary free-jazz flame-throwing, but with some unexpected surprises thrown in too.
Identical Sunsets opens (rather unusually) with a brief solo bagpipe performance by Dunmall. It's quite an odd and unrepresentative way to begin the album and I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it, even after several listens (maybe Chris wasn’t either, since he sat it out).It is certainly a bit fascinating and unique to hear an incredibly talented musician furiously shredding on a damn bagpipe, but it is not an instrument that lends itself particularly well to rapid flurries of notes—it can get a bit shrill.
Thankfully, Paul sticks exclusively to his saxophone for the remaining three songs and things get a lot more exciting.Corsano, characteristically, puts on a skittering and rumbling tour de force and Dunmall holds his own quite nicely (no mean feat).It must be extremely tempting to resort to atonal skwonks and howls when there is such a volcanic percussionist absolutely leveling the place behind you, but Dunmall remains in complete control throughout.His runs are appropriately frenzied and cathartic given their backdrop, but generally still quite melodic and intelligently connected.The rare quiet moments are quite compelling too—particularly the section in "Living Proof" where Paul coaxes ghostly multiphonic moans and overtones from his sax.The duo display quite an intuitive connection throughout their set, as they always seem to shift gears before any passages begin to drag, seamlessly flowing back and forth between visceral raging and ominous simmering.
Of course, the downside to two guys wildly improvising at some club in Cheltenham is that it still ultimately sounds like two guys wildly improvising at some club in Cheltenham.An album like this probably won’t have much cross-over appeal for people that don’t already like free jazz (bagpipe fans aside), though Corsano is considerably more frenzied and muscular than most other jazz drummers.This is certainly well-traveled stylistic territory, but it is rarely done with such a perfect balance of musicality and go-for-broke intensity.Chris and Paul both deliver some truly impassioned and virtuosic performances here, making for one very impressive and satisfying album.
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This reissue of ACR’s Factory Records swansong captures the band at the height of their popularity and influence, spearheading (along with New Order, Quando Quango, and others) the dancification of the celebrated Manchester indie scene. While inventive, funky, and certainly a proto-Madchester touchstone, it doesn’t hold up quite as well as their Simon Topping-era earlier work (perhaps because dance music evolves a hell of a lot faster than punk). Of course, I am very much predisposed to "tense and brooding" over "funky and fun," so I may not be the target demographic here. Still, I suspect that this is probably the sort of classic album where you had to be there to fully appreciate it.
When I listened to Force for the first time, I was reminded of an amusing scene in Until the Light Takes Us in which an exasperated Gylve from Dark Throne patiently explains to an interviewer that he knows exactly how he wants Dark Throne to sound and the fact that he loves underground dance music does not mean that it will wind up on his next album.At this point in their career, A Certain Ratio exemplified the exact opposite of that sentiment—they were a band of post-punk magpies, exuberantly gobbling up and assimilating new influences as fast as they appeared.Whether or not this approach worked for them is pretty contentious, as this album garnered rave reviews from the mainstream British music press (Melody Maker proclaimed it "a glorious achievement") and certainly made a lot of people happy on Manchester’s dancefloors.To my ears, however, it is merely another frustrating step way from their excellent Sextet album.
There are three big problems here.The first is that doing things first is a relative achievement, rather than an absolute one.Being one of the earliest British rock bands to incorporate Latin rhythms, jazz, electro-funk, hip hop, samplers, and NYC dance music into their sound was undeniably fresh and hip in the early ‘80s, but just sounds kind of primitive and dated now.Secondly, the actual songs are not especially great.A lot of effort clearly went into the beats and the arrangements, but the lyrics and vocal melodies are often pretty weak ("C’mon, c’mon, c’mon- get ready!") and it sometimes sounds like vocalist Jez Kerr can’t decide whether he wants to sound like Joy Division or Wang Chung.Finally, the band seems extremely fixated on making sure that the beats are as rib cage rattling as possible.This means that almost all of the songs are mid-paced stomps and that the slapping and popping bass lines are perfectly synced to the drums, rather than being allowed to flow or propel the groove.It’s certainly tight and packs some punch, but also makes the songs sound pretty similar and sacrifices fluidity.I strongly prefer the looser, more laid-back grooves of Force’s predecessor, I’d Like to See You Again.
Nevertheless, A Certain Ratio definitely achieved something here.If Force is a bit of a well-intentioned but clumsy Frankenstein of an album, it’s still a pretty inspired one. Fans of their darker early work will probably only like "Naked and White" (the outro of which boasts some absolutely spectacular drumming), but the band shines brightest on funky instrumentals like the muscular single "Mickey Way" and frequent show-closing Latin dance party "Si Firmo O Grido." Those two vamps have a sense of fun and vitality to them that makes it obvious what the band would rather be doing.Unfortunately, that particular direction was never fully explored, as Force was the last album to feature one of the band’s main creative forces (and strongest musician), as keyboardist Andrew Connell was pulled away by the demands of his more commercially successful Swing Out Sister project.Though the passing of time hasn’t been especially kind to this conflicted and transitional effort, it was nevertheless a very forward-thinking album (in its context) and played a significant role in the evolution of the Manchester sound and dance music in general.Which, of course, is much more than I've been doing lately.
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The album starts with a soda can being opened: the click of aluminum as the tab is pressed down, the tsssh sound of carbonation being released into the air, the hissing fizz of cola. It ends with the sound of the can being crushed and thrown to the ground with a rattle and clunk. In this caffeine-fueled, densely layered and politically charged audio collage, we are taken on a ride through the billion-dollar advertising campaigns for Pepsi and Coke, the vagaries of the cola wars, celebrity endorsements, and torture. While Negativland are not generally known for their catchy hooks, upbeat rhythms, and memorable lyrics, Dispepsi remains a great "pop" album.
Negativland are known best for their visceral reinterpretations of the media sphere. Their sample-based masterpieces, heavy on the spoken word, are gathered from every conceivable source: broadcast radio, television, movies, commercial and promotional recordings, homemade family tapes and other even more obscure sources. These are handled with the same meticulous precision as a surgeon or forensic pathologist. The metaphor of pathology is an apt one as much of their creative energy has been used to dissect the psychotic and antisocial tendencies of gun toting capitalists, corporations, and media conglomerates. When Dispepsi came out in 1997 it was a focused critique against the advertising campaigns and policies of soda giants Pepsico and the Coca-Cola Company.
On the cover and spine of the album the title "Dispepsi" is not displayed coherently. The letters making it up were discombobulated into anagrams including "Pedissip" and "Ideppiss." A 1-800 phone number was given in the liner notes that had a recording where the proper name of the album could be heard. All this was a safeguard, albeit a thin one, against trademark infrigement and the possible law suits that might ensue had they shown the actual title. Amazingly enough this is one album the copyright critics didn’t get sued for.
While there are plenty of moments of noise, weird sounds, and chaotic collusions on the record, the majority of songs are marked by strong hooks and catchy melodies that get stuck in my head as easily as the advertising jingles they mimic and mock. I am glad Negativland are engaged in subverting corporate messages. They have spent so much time denouncing the culture of advertising that they have a thorough grasp of its mentality. This psychological knowledge could have been more profitably channeled towards selling useless products, instead they spent two and a half years crafting an album that has given me countless hours of pleasure. I listened to it repeatedly just after it came out, and I still put it on a few times a year even now. When initiating new listeners to the vast territory that Negativland has explored this is an album I always start with.
"Drink It Up" paints in the greater landscape of pre-packaged beverages with lines like "when Diet Rite to me is wrong, my Country Time’s expired, my Minute Maid is an hour long, my Maxwell House won’t get my wired, when my pet milk turns on me, and my Five Alive is dead…" on through numerous other permutations. Then the triumphant chorus rings in, "and my mind just turns to Pepsi, and I think of it a lot, my Swiss Miss wasn’t pure, and Kool Aid isn’t hot, when a wall of smoothies rough me up, I’ll turn to a bigger cup of Pepsi, drink it up." One of the main themes on the album is the use of celebrities in advertising to sell products. This starts on "Why Is this Commercial?" with the voice of Michael J. Fox saying, "Hi I’m me, I’m using this to sell you this." It loops and repeats, lodging deep in my mind. The song continues to describe the corporate policies that determine how advertisements tend to use African-Americans in only traditionally perceived roles that are by extension racist—hence Uncle Ben and Aunt Jamima—that white people can remain comfortable with, but not in those that expand the parameters. It continues with a sample of athlete Herschel Walker and ends with a quote that Michael Jackson was paid five million dollars to star in two 90 second ads.
The cult of celebrity is explored in even more depth on "Happy Hero," a song that was remixed and included on the thematically related Happy Heroes EP. Thanks to Mark Hosler this tune has an almost country-western vibe that casual listeners would find appealing. The lyrics, however, reveal a deep concern with how superstars and other famous people can be convicted of atrocious crimes—both public and private—while still retaining the naïve loyalty of a fan base who are always willing to overlook the fact that these people beat their wives, have sex with underage children, or commit murders. "The Greatest Taste Around" has a wonderful children’s rompous room beat as the voice of Dick Lyons, reads out fun lines like, "I got fired by my boss" and then a loudly sampled "Pepsi" interspersed, before saying "I nailed Jesus to the cross" all in a happy tone that makes me thirsty for soda. Another highlight of the album is "Aluminum or Glass: The Memo," where the Weatherman poses as an ad exec coaching his underlings on how to shoot the perfect commercial, or what he calls "a heightened reality vignette." The videos made for some of these songs on the DVD Our Favorite Things are likewise continuously entertaining.
At times the music of Negativland can feel suffocating as it is so saturated with media samples. I can only imagine how painstaking the process assembling it all together was for the band, but it was certainly worth the effort. Other ambitious concept albums have floundered, this one remains strong, and its artistic statement ever more pertinent in a world flooded competing commercial messages. Dispepsi has a smooth and satisfying finish that has yet to go flat truly making it "the choice of the Negative generation."
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