New Scott Walker album: 'The Drift'

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (961 of them)

[url=http://www.flim.com/flim/index.html?20050806]this[/url] feels a bit like Scott Walker, I think.

― kitaj (kitaj), Monday, 1 May 2006 07:04 (twenty years ago)

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 1 May 2006 21:23 (twenty years ago)

www.thewire.co.uk/web/unpublished/scott_walker.html has an unedited transcript of Rob Young's interview with Scott. In it the Godlike one talks about reading Updike. Might explain what that rabbit's doin' in "Clara."

― Daddy Dewdrop, Thursday, 4 May 2006 18:13 (twenty years ago)

Wow, thanks so much!

― Gerard (Gerard), Thursday, 4 May 2006 18:56 (twenty years ago)

Has there been any reviews yet that use the phrase "Get The Drift"?

― The Mercury Krueger (Ex Leon), Thursday, 4 May 2006 18:59 (twenty years ago)

That's an excellent interview. I still kind of wish he wouldn't talk so much about what the songs are about, tho'.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 4 May 2006 20:35 (twenty years ago)

Well he could be bluffing...

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 5 May 2006 06:28 (twenty years ago)

is the reissue of climate of hunter much better than the standard issue? it isn't a record that seemed to screaming for a remaster to me.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 5 May 2006 06:43 (twenty years ago)

Doesn't sound appreciably (i.e. at all) deeper or fuller.

Petridish tries it with Scott in today's Grauniad.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 5 May 2006 06:51 (twenty years ago)

Bizarrely this is record of the week in The Daily Express.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 5 May 2006 09:42 (twenty years ago)

He's interviewed in Mojo this month

― Vitbe... *pause*... Is Good Bread (Dada), Friday, 5 May 2006 09:47 (twenty years ago)

The album's currently #18 on Amazon!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 5 May 2006 09:50 (twenty years ago)

There's also a review and interview in Uncut out today.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 5 May 2006 11:05 (twenty years ago)

what a recluse.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 5 May 2006 11:08 (twenty years ago)

He'll be on CD:UK next.

Oh.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 5 May 2006 11:16 (twenty years ago)

Celebrity Big Brother? Strictly Come Dancing? Love Island?

― Vitbe... *pause*... Is Good Bread (Dada), Friday, 5 May 2006 11:28 (twenty years ago)

Actually, I was cycling down by the Thames in Chiswick and Putney yesterday afternoon and passed a geezer who looked very much like SW. Given that he apparently lives in Chiswick, I wonder...

Funny story in the Guardian interview about someone sitting next to him on the tube.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 5 May 2006 11:34 (twenty years ago)

Interview in the Independent:
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article361953.ece
although he's (understandably) starting to repeat himself now.

On the Wire website there's a transcript of their Scott interview, with lots of stuff that got left out of the article. The best read of the lot.

― jz, Friday, 5 May 2006 11:41 (twenty years ago)

It probably was Scott. I used to see him on his bike all the time when I lived in Chiswick. The only celebrity I ever saw there, apart from Michael Barrymore.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 5 May 2006 11:44 (twenty years ago)

Jesus, he's publicity-mad!

― Vitbe... *pause*... Is Good Bread (Dada), Friday, 5 May 2006 11:45 (twenty years ago)

This quote from the Independent is a bloody nonsense: 'His literary tastes range from the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun to Dostoevsky.'. That's like saying his taste in music ranges from Led Zeppelin to Black Sabbath. Or Grieg to Tchaikovsky, if you prefer.

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 5 May 2006 12:02 (twenty years ago)

In the Independent they would have said: "ranges from '70s rock band Led Zeppelin to '70s rock band Black Sabbath," and "to the Russian writer Dostoevsky," because as we all know broadsheet readers know nothing about nothing.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 5 May 2006 12:06 (twenty years ago)

Broadsheet editors know nothing about nothing shurely?

― Vitbe... *pause*... Is Good Bread (Dada), Friday, 5 May 2006 12:09 (twenty years ago)

To be fair, it was only in the 'Arts & Books Review' bit, so you could let them off not knowing shit about literature.

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 5 May 2006 12:12 (twenty years ago)

Drift is now number 16 in the Amazon.co.uk sales chart, (and a 5 star review in the Metro this morning)

I predict a glut of second hand copies available within the week.

― Bidfurd (Bidfurd), Monday, 8 May 2006 09:49 (twenty years ago)

I bought this

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 8 May 2006 14:40 (twenty years ago)

I predict a glut of second hand copies available within the week.

I wonder about this. I would imagine most reviews would at least make a passing mention about how the music is a long way from your average singer songwriter or pop artist fare, and given how much we're likely to read bizarre lyric interpretations, I'd hope that anyone buying the CD would have an inkling of what they were in for. Who knows though, I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of used copies of this soon.

― Dominique (dleone), Monday, 8 May 2006 14:43 (twenty years ago)

I bought it in Fopp.

Dilemma of whether to rip it and strain to listen to it on my evening commute solved by just-remembered responsibility of taking Ava home tonight on the bus. Maybe I'll let her play with the slipcase.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Monday, 8 May 2006 14:45 (twenty years ago)

I bought it in fopp, too

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 8 May 2006 14:55 (twenty years ago)

I bought this

I bought it in fopp, too

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 8 May 2006 15:26 (twenty years ago)

i think a diversion to fopp on my way home may be in order. £10, right?

― zebedee (zebedee), Monday, 8 May 2006 15:36 (twenty years ago)

£12

this is incredible.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 8 May 2006 15:38 (twenty years ago)

FFFFUCK!

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 8 May 2006 15:42 (twenty years ago)

£9.99 in Solo Music in Exeter. Not out of the cellophane yet, and wont be till tomorrow probably.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:47 (twenty years ago)

I have it on vinyl with lyric sheet = I am stoked. Now if only the gorgeously sunny California weather wasn't so utterly inappropriate for this music.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:56 (twenty years ago)

nighttimes

― Dominique (dleone), Monday, 8 May 2006 16:57 (twenty years ago)

alcohol

― SQUARECOATS (plsmith), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:24 (twenty years ago)

YOU'RE WELCOME DREW!

ha.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:29 (twenty years ago)

thanx dawwg

sorry about lawyer ron : (

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Monday, 8 May 2006 17:52 (twenty years ago)

Lawyer Ron? A superhero?

The weather down here is foggy so there is that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 May 2006 18:12 (twenty years ago)

it's ok, i didn't have any money down.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 8 May 2006 18:19 (twenty years ago)

I feel I should say that I bought this in Fopp too, and the Matmos as well, each of which was £12 which felt odd as I don't usually have to pay morte than a tenner for anything there. They both come with thick inserts and a slipcase though.

1st track of Walker was surprisingly pleasant and rocking. I am playing computer games to it.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Monday, 8 May 2006 18:31 (twenty years ago)

Psst, Psst, Psst, Psst

OK, I have listened to this now and it’s much less abstruse and hard to approach than the thread above had led me to believe... I thought maybe it'd be a chore to get through and after I'd managed I'd not like it and think that I was missing something or that it was my fault. It's comparatively POP compared to what I'd expected and an easier listen than Tilt.

It sounds to me like a horror film soundtrack (1976-1983) mixed with the more rocking end of post-rock and sometimes even bits of the first two Black Sabbath albums (I even thought I heard him mention black masses but I think that was wishful thinking as I can’t see it in the lyrics) (obv. horror soundtracks and this both draw on modernist string composition.) I could even imagine some band on Relapse Records or some of the black metallers that went ambient ending up sounding like this, just from a completely different direction. I mean Walker does like Nine Inch Nails and Mogwai.

It’s got a lot of forward motion and rock energy for a something titled “the Drift”.

I thought the lyric fragments in the thread above were pretty weak but they're much funnier on record and, I'm guessing, deliberately so—-no-one would really write a song about Elvis' twin or use "like what happened in America" as a refrain w/out tongue in cheek these days would they?

Also, “WHAT’S UP DOC?” And the donkey is FUCKING GREAT.

When Scott sings "A man came up toward the body/and poked it with a stick" I think of Crispin Glover in Rivers Edge.

There should be an instrumental version of this record.

I think that this might work as sex music. That’s probably why I’m getting none.

It’s really fucking good.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:14 (twenty years ago)

I have to say, this is the first time I've really missed having the stereo set up. I'm playing it on the laptop with PowerDVD thru a USB soundcard and my second-best headphones (God knows where the Grados are). Wonderful murderous sludge of strings on Clara. Oh, the missus is home. The strings are almost pretty now.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:15 (twenty years ago)

Yes. This record has killed me. Tilt was only appreciated for the parts that sounded most like "Scott 3" but this record has invented a new language.

Ironically, the vocals seem almost inconsequential compared to the incredible depth of the production. The best recorded album I have ever heard.

― Owen Pallett (Owen Pallett), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:40 (twenty years ago)

I gave in. Just done three songs. All I could take at once. Absolutely fucking crackers. I particularly like the bit in "Clara" when Scott's punching the shit out of a side of raw pork and the woman's whispering and the locusts suddenly swarm out of your speakers. I kind of wish I was being figurative.

Jonesey get your hi-fi out.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 8 May 2006 21:04 (twenty years ago)

I mean I read the thing about him walking past a butcher's and seeing the side of pork and thinking "THAT's the sound I'm after!" but I thought, Nah, fuck off, and then, bang, there it is, Scott Walker punching shit out of a dead pig's arse, in glorious stereo.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 8 May 2006 21:06 (twenty years ago)

Rewire only seven days away, Nick, with mere weeks of decorating to follow. Thinking of having an Audiophile Corner in the bedroom - Copland plugged into the 8000Q, Grados off that. We never let Ava run around upstairs so it would be toddler-safe too. Just the faff of unpacking then repacking ahead of the sparks descending on us.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Monday, 8 May 2006 21:26 (twenty years ago)

"Jonesey get your hi-fi out" is my favourite phrase at the moment.

Blow me a birthday kiss when rewiring starts, remmeber!

My friend's dad had a flash hi-fi when we were kids and he told my friend's younger sibling that if they touched his speakers they'd get electric shocks, one time "demonstrating" this by touching them himself and twitching and screaming a bit and then falling to the floor. Surprisingly my friend's little sister isn't in care or anything.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 06:38 (twenty years ago)

I was pretty apprehensive about writing this up on CoM; I thought it was going to be an immense task, but while the piece has physically taken longer for me to prepare and write than anything I've done on the blog since Aerial - down to the sheer quantity of things to take into account - the thoughts, associations, emotions and reactions came surprisingly easily.

I've still got a few bits and pieces to put in, but hopefully the article will be up on CoM by the end of this week.

To put it very, very mildly, the record has shaken me to my core.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 07:29 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 861 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.