New Scott Walker album: 'The Drift'

PaulBaran: The hissing on a lover loves is a distancing technique for definite, to prevent the song from being pleasant, to undercut the relative ease of the melody in comparison with whats gone before...

yes, your observation is spot on and wholly consistent with the procedures he uses in pyschic disruption, as well as that hissing, you can also hear the guitar veer of atonally as well on that song. Most great music, manipulates different emotions; Here Mr Engel opts to manipulate our fear, just as global governments and corporations do.

like jesse. ok, when i listen to it now i know that it's somehow about elvis' dead brother and the twin towers, and there's a guitar reference to jailhouse rock, and the pow pows are the planes hitting the towers...

but damned if i know what elvis' dead brother has to do with the twin towers, or how they fit together in the song, other than that they lyrics seem to morph back and forth between the two subjects, or what all these references actually communicate in the end

which doesn't make the song any less powerful, i'm quite happy to listen to it without figuring it out as if it were a code. but i'm also not convinced there really is anything to figure out at the end of the day.

like hand me ups. ok, its about reality tv/global celebrity culture etc. and sw's commentary on that is to bring in the old artist-as-jesus, crucified for the spectacle of the masses, allegory.

not exactly subtle, or original.

Isn't that what defines great art. A work which simultaneously allows you to stand back as a spectator and take in the whole effect of it, while it merits enough elusivness to elcit a range of critical responses, ranging from " Fuck me to the socio-political undercurrents of this are infinite X,Y,and mr Zebedee". You can enjoy it on multiple levels, no matter which way you are mentally and emotionally orientated towards it. Your response isn't less valid than mine, it's just as unique.

Boychild " Go seek the Lady" ;)

Paul.

but if someone has a good explanation of what, say, jesse is supposed to actually mean, beyond listing all the reference points, i'd like to hear it!

words

Well, to be precise, it's one of his only vocals in years!

I listened to "Tilt" recently for the first time in ages, it's an album that gets less impressive the more you listen to it. Still looking forward to the new 'un tho, of course!

Do tell — I've been listening to it the last few days myself...

Geri

Seeing that "Jesse" has a visual element all prepared for the upcoming doc, who would direct the video for "Cossacks Are" aside from SW himself?

http://www.4ad.com/releases/

for those interested in analysis found this disection of the lyrics for "Tilt" in an old ILM discussion....

'A moving aria
for a vanishing
style of mind'

'A noble debut
tackling vertiginous
demands'

'Has absence ever
sounded so eloquent
so sad
I doubt it?'

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the nails

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the pale
monkey
nails

'Touching in the
shattered lives
it unearths'

'A nocturne
filled with
glorious ideas'

'A chilling
exploration
of erotic
consumption'

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the nails

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the pale
monkey
nails

Cossacks are
charging in

Charging into
fields of
white roses

Cossacks are
charging in

Charging into
fields of
white roses

"That's a
nice suit"
"That's a
swanky suit"

"Been a pope
like no other"

"I'm looking
for a good
cowboy"

'A rare outcry
makes you lead
a larger life'

'You could easily
picture this in
the current top
ten'

'Medieval savagery
calculated cruelty'

'Its hard to pick
the worst moment'

'Its hard to pick
the worst moment'

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the nails

With an arm
across the
torso

Face on
the pale
monkey
nails

i totally agree with this assessment, though sw himself denied it.

having read the lyrics and the notes now, i'm even less inclined to believe there is a meaning to be extracted from most of these songs now. he may say, or have once said, that every

that every moment--music, lyrics--of each song is intended to convey a specific meaning. but if that's really the case, that meaning is so hidden/recessive that it will never be available to anyone other than scott himself

(Reuters Tuesday, February 22, 2005)
Bush was asked by a French reporter if relations were now good enough for Bush to invite Chirac to his Crawford, Texas, and ranch, an honour bestowed by Bush on his closest allies.

"I'm looking for a good cowboy," Bush responded.

(Guardian Unlimited book review/The Pope in Winter: The Dark Face of John Paul II's Papacy
Saturday February 12, 2005)
John Paul II, the Polish pope, born Karol Wojtyla 84 years ago in Wadowice, is perhaps the most extraordinary and influential Christian of modern times. He has "been a pope like no other": not just because of his longevity; not just for supplanting the centuries-old tradition that popes must be Italian;....

(Sunday Times book review /Slavenka Drakuliæ :The Taste of a Man
Abacus March 1998)
'Astonishingly sensuous... a chilling exploration of erotic consumption... engrossing' -- Sunday Times

An easy google search will back up these results.

(BBC news /Tuesday, 12 February, 2002/ "Milosevic accused of 'medieval savagery")
Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte:
"Some of the incidents revealed an almost medieval savagery and a calculated cruelty that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate warfare"

As we are for every other song ever as well.

The Drift (1989). Directed by John Aes-Nihil, based on the Tennessee Williams novel.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183015/fullcredits

His website Archives of Aesthetic Nihilism looks interesting
http://www.aes-nihil.com/

dadmomsis
driving in
the black car

dadmomsis
sighting on
the white line

long come something
in a blinding
light

long gone something
in a blinding
light

dead all dead
ooh all dead

dead all dead
ooh all dead

bloody foot
bloody head

eat the nose
for christmas

eat the toes
for lent

eat the car
for eat-a-car

send the bones
to kent