Disc of the day
Various Artists - Axe Attack Vol II
Metal Britannica inspires MOJO metal amnesty. Studded leather wristbands aloft!
Features Disc of the day
The Walker Brothers
Nite Flights
(GTO, 1978)
Former pin-ups' last-gasp reinvention as art rock phantasms.
Back in early 1978, Scott Walker hadn't recorded any of his own songs since 1970's co-written 'Til The Band Comes In. And after the well-sung if complacent cover versions of that time of drought, his four compositions on the reformed Walker Brothers' final album - loved by Bowie and Eno among others - were a devastating way to resume operations. Played by a rock band and orchestra, these four freezing bursts of shock and anguish blend experimentalism, pop sounds and even disco with the same cold ambience of Martin Hannett's productions of the following year. It can be oblique, it's fair to say; apocalyptic opener Shut Out sees the writer and harmonising stage brother John declaring "Something attacked the earth last night", while Fat Mama Kick features the let's-party declaration "Deaf, dumb, blind!" repeated six times, before a blast on a church organ and a rabid saxophone solo. But the real darkness descends with The Electrician. A nightmare evocation of US-backed torture squads in South America, this dialogue between torturer and tortured is part intense humming of evil, part south American getaway holiday theme - and if you want to gauge how far the group had come from the clean-cut romance of their '60s glory years, this is the song to go to (in the face of this uniqueness, it's probably unfair to compare the six songs included here by other two Brothers John and Gary). After its release, they played some cabaret dates but split soon after. "I always wondered what might have happened if we'd carried on after Nite Flights," John Walker said in 2006. "Where would we have gone? Why did we break up? Damn, I wish I knew."
Clive Prior
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 02/02/2010
Further Listening
Scott Walker – Climate Of Hunter (Virgin, 1984)
http://www.mojo4music.com/blog/2008/12/post_39.html
David Bowie – Low (RCA, 1977)
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (Factory, 1979)
Previous Disc of the day
-
Various Artists - Axe Attack Vol II
Metal Britannica inspires MOJO metal amnesty. Studded leather wristbands aloft!
2:32 PM GMT 12/03/2010
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The Pop Group - Y
For connoisseurs of pop-as-rupture-in-the-space/time-continuum
6:00 AM GMT 11/03/2010
-
St Vitus Dance - Glypotheque
Belfast combo return unannounced, go sardonic pop-folk.
6:00 AM GMT 09/03/2010
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