Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Scott Walker
Climate Of Hunter
(Virgin, 1984)
Brr! For ex-heartthrob’s semi-approachable staging post en route to dungeon of madness.
For the Holiday fortnight, every Disc Of The Day will be a “winter warmer”, revelling in sonic/existential chill or offering fireside comfort.
After his still-stunning run of solo records in the late ’60s, Scott Walker’s ’70s were arid, with bland, unhip LPs called things like Any Day Now and We Had It All squandering one of pop’s greatest voices. But, possibly driven by the guilt and shame of mugging tunes like this, a radical shift leftwards resulted. 1984’s Climate Of Hunter was in theory a comeback, but all norms were off in this deep-shadow collection of songs for dreams and nightmares (see Scott’s shocked look in the cover pic, taken by the late Bob Carlos Clarke). Session bass ace Mo Foster recalled that working on it was like “playing upside down”: here were unorthodox rhythms, synthesiser drones and frozen string arrangements stalking a singer sonorously intoning lyric fragments that suggested much but revealed nothing. Opening track Rawhide may well concern the frozen, preserved corpse of an ice age cowherd, the Palaeolithic cave paintings of Lascaux and the constellation of Taurus. Stars, twinkling in a night sky, recur, as does cold, blood and bones, like some ritual checklist waiting to be decoded. Sleepwalkers Woman is most like the old Scott, a luminescent four minutes of orchestra and voice that rises and falls and speaks of exile and confession. An appearance on The Tube and the single Track 3 notwithstanding, it sold hardly at all, prompting Scott to go back to art college and dream up the Spanner Trial-Harrison Birtwistle-Nine Inch Nails sounds of 1995’s Tilt. Not to worry. Listen to this in the small hours of a cold night and be transported.
Ian Harrison
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 22/12/2008
Further Listening
The Walker Brothers – Nite Flghts (GTO, 1978)
Mark Hollis – Mark Hollis (Polydor, 1998)
Nico – Camera Obscura (Beggars Banquet, 1985)
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Comments
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One of the most bizarre albums i own. 'Rawhide', 'Dealer' and 'Sleepwalkers Woman' are astonishingly beautiful and rank among his best work. 'Track Six' and the Knopfler collaboration (yes, you read that right) 'Blanket Roll Blues' are perfectly serviceable and intriguing. There are probably good ideas to be found in the remaining three tracks, but they're so stubbornly hidden under 80's production of the worst kind, masturbatory guitar solos and Billy Ocean harmonies (again, that's not a misprint), that it's barely worth the effort. In summary, roughly half a total classic, roughly half a major embarrasment. Very Scott!
Posted by Dave at 8:54 AM GMT 22/12/2008 Report Abuse
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Probably one of the most underrated discs from Scott, and of all time.
A minor classic.
Posted by M.A.Melo at 11:38 AM GMT 30/12/2008 Report Abuse
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