Hurrah! A shufflethon review! of 'Untitled' CD Courtesy of Kaptain Korbold…

I’ll admit, there’s a lot of blogs I do read regularly. And a Lot I don’t. Normally when browsing at the library, I only read a select half dozen or so blogs regularly, and all the others on peoples appropriate sidebars , of which there might be about a hundred, I don’t tend to read regularly. Pop in occasionally maybe. And sometimes, I’ve never read their blogs before. For which, Kaptain Korbold deserves an apology, because when his CD turned up in the shuffleathon, I felt more than slightly embarrassed to think for a few moments ‘Who?’, because the name nor the blog didn’t look familiar at first glance. Even more embarrassing when I realise that the good Kaptain seems to do every meme I ever fill in.Sticking in the ‘untitled’ compilation, there’s a few thigs immediately obvious; and that’s that I suspect that the good Kaptain loves a fair bit of progrock...

Anyway….

01.Penguin Café Orchestra – Music For a Found Harmonium

A low hum emanates from the speakers. Sound drifts in and out, gently forming into chords and apeggios. It builds…. It forms…It coalesces. Out of shapes comes structure. And then, a familiar pattern builds up and up, to a crescendo, a finish.I don’t know how old this track is, but I sure like it. Maybe that’s because it sounds almost exactly like Philip Glass would, if he went and joined tangerine dream and suddenly got a fetish for old analogue synths.

02.Nick Drake - Things Behind The Sun

Quiet, mellow, and yes, a lot like someone else. Nick Cave? David Gilmour doing Fat Old Sun? A Little bit of gentle, acoustic whinmsy, nicely bridging the stylistic gap between Penguin café orchestra and the full of power rock of ……

03.Rush - Animate

I love Rush. I can’t deny that. Especially in the years 1980-1990. After that though, they seemed to lose a lot of their texturing and subtlety to be replaced with a more bludgeoning and simplistic power rock approach, which I found thoroughly unexceptional, especially after the heights of the eighties.(I must be about the only rush fan who thinks this, though). So, sadly for me, much as I love the band, this is far from a standout track from rush ; If it was the only track I had heard from the band, it wouldn’t make me want to listen to anything else the band had done. But Still, I know all the words, like a melody so sweet, a strong and simple beat that you can dance to. Damn, can’t even stop quoting the lyrics to other rush songs, can I? Still Not one of their best songs, but it is VERY fitting to the rest of this compilation, in a sort of 70’s/80’s progrock sort of thing. As Rush songs go, it commits the worst crime of their back catalogue of the nineties ; Its Pedestrian.

04.The Enid - Sundialer

If the Pet Shop boys suddenly decided to meet the Levellers, chucked in a whole load of acoustic guitars and orchestral stabs a la 1991 Rave songs. Aha, might be the Enid. Oddly dated, yet oddly not. Quite quirky and unusual, in a outdoor folky megadog rave kind of way. *gets dog on string, drinks cider, and wears baggy overalls int he sunshine in a field in hampshire *

05.Yes - Roundabout

A low ominious rumble, a chiming acoustic guitar plays a spiralling pattern down the fretboard, while thunder rumbles in the background. It sound so , so familiar. Like a song I’ve heard a thousand million times. These times I think so clearly, this times I drift away, along the bus lines that meander along these valleys of the Green and Grey? I never thought yes could be quite so, good. And then…

CLANG CLANG CLANG

The rickenbaker bass kicks in and destroys the ambience. Aaaaargh, AAAAARGH. Please make it stop. Please. That clanking sounds horrible. And then the keyboard socme in, and we’re into the anonymous territory of progrock hell. Oh, I hate this. I don’t even think I make it to the end of the track, I press the Skip button. And I really really liked the intro too, shame, but I never realised just how much New Model Army ripped it off for ‘Green and grey’ back in 1989.

06.John Renbourne - So Clear

I seem remember thinking this was quite pleasant but utterly forgettable. Sorry!

07.Blue Man group - I feel Love

Quite possibly the finest disco song ever given a reworking with chunky analog synths and it is erm…pumpin and rinsin’. At least for the first half, until after then when it goes all rocksit again. A commendable cover that makes a disco cliché listenable and even fresh in places, though it does detoriate in the second half I feel. Would be put to great use soundtracking a car chase in new york in a Michael mann cop thriller, though it would only have to be used the 40 second chunks repeated over and over again….Overall, this is one I will be sticking on imaginary soundtrack ocmpilation album for that American cop thriller I’m working on about a pair of detectives who never solve anything because they’re too damn polite and have the manner of a English teaparty. ‘Miami Nice’, anyone? (it’s a better title than the A planned jerry bruckheimer re-imaginging called ‘Miami Vice:New York’ or, my particular favourite; “CSI: Doncaster”, don’t you think?

08.Sigur Ros - Saeglopur

Simply beautiful and haunting. The nicest surprise here, as it makes me want to listen to more of the band. Effective and lilting, This is truly the best kind of music you can have. The music that takes you away and to that other place……

09.Justin Sullivan - Ocean Rising

New Model Army were good once – mainly in the angry years between 1983-1993. (Thunder and Consolation, especially. However, after that, when drummer Robert Heaton left, Justin Sullivan took on the mantle of the band. Since then, NMA have been largely and mainly formless and uninspiring to me. Gone are the incisive and sharp lyrics, replaced with a more poetic and wistful approach, and the songs mainly unmemorable, meandering. NMA were always at their best when being angry – how many other bands do you know have been banned from top of the pops for wearing t-signs emblazoned with the phrase ‘only stupid bast*rds use heroin’ – but that anger here has been replaced with a world weary acceptance, a resignation, like an ocean rising and beating you down under the rising flood. It does make me mildy curious to hear the rest of his solo stuff, but sadly I don’t hold out much hope for it being anything other than more of the same. If Only they had continued to be as incisive and biting of the years 1983-1993, then maybe they would still actually be relevant. I know it’s a bit rich to use the Justin Sullivan / NMA tag interchangeably, but to all intents and purposes, they are now, and even being a big fan, I can’t tell the two apart stylistically at all.

10.Caterwaul - The Sheeps A Wolf

Being the long haired cider drinking grebo oik I was during the late 80s and early 90s (ahem, and metal head, and liking Back to the planet and a plethora of bad goth bands), I heard a long of bands for whom using a long drawn out echo pedal was about the songwriting tool they had. Oh, that and a exceptional ability to sound like a lot of other unsuccessful goth bands, in a mostly generic manner. Now all those bands seem to reform to play daylight shows and appear on dodgy compilations packaged together with titles like ‘The Darker Side of A Decade’ and ‘Now that’s what I call goth’.See examples such as the Bolshoi, Gene Loves jezebel, the Chameleons, and so forth. Sadly this track does not stand out except in its stylistic choices, which seem to be set onto the 80s dry-ice, flour and big black cowboy hats option. Nope, sadly this didn’t move, didn’t seem to stand out from the pack of a hundred other generic goth bands. Which is a shame, because it seems like a lot of the problems are an obsession with the stylistic trappings of the genre rather than writing songs which people might remember ; Its just like listening to the Field of the Nepehelim, without the good bits. (Also see: Every other goth band since 1993, especially Rosetta Stone). Shame, because I like goth stuff, I just think most of the bands are utterly devoid of originality, and this doesn’t change that perception

11.Sheila Chandra - The Struggle / the Dream

Erm, I really must say this made no real impression on me at all. Sorry.

12.Mike Oldfield - The lake (instrumental)

Oh, think you know mike oldfield? Is that why you’ve got tubular bells as your rigntone (bah, that’s only because you love classic old horror movies like the exorcist, isnt It! I mean, just ask the horror film buff security guard at my work about that) . Well, after that he made a lot of other albums which sold less and less and impressed less and less, mostly based on the similar pattern of side long ambientinsturmentals made with synthesisers. And then, the guitars kick in, the big ROCK guitar solos. There’s an awful lot of progrock from the time that’s very much like this, and now neglected, but that’s because its dated worse than the Turin Shroud. Again, an interesting end to the compilation – almost Jarreian in some aspects – but far too rockist for my taste.

Overall, its very much a throwback to a classic age...not all to my tastes, but some good stuff in there. thanks alan!