In Praise Of...Shriekback's "Oil and Gold"

busted. what I should have said was "overused". "horrible" was overkill, based on stuff I really hate from that era that used the sound, not this excellent album. I do think the songs suffer a bit from the prevalence of said effect. also, as discussed in some other thread I can't recall now, it dates the album to a certain time period, which I have no problem with but does place it in a certain category of memory that makes it difficult for me to truly hear it anew on repeated listens. hope that makes sense.

I always really liked the 12" mix of "Fish Below The Ice" as well. came with that cool embossed cover.

how crap is the UK cover in comparison to the USA cover ?

back to shriekback - the image above is garish and rather unpleasant .. i much prefer the uk cover :

http://www.shriekback.com/do_oilandgold_files/oilandgold_euro.jpg

(wow "Fish Below The Ice"!)

"Faded Flowers" is just such a killer song, this album is unbelievable, we are all old

tape version

A1 Nemesis
A2 Only Thing That Shines
A3 Health And Knowledge And Wealth And Power
A4 Hammerheads
A5 Coelocanth
B1 Malaria
B2 Everything That Rises Must Converge
B3 Fish Below The Ice
B4 This Big Hush
B5 Faded Flowers

It was a John Peel session in 1985 that introduced Shriekback to me as a 15 year old.

RTE 2 DJ Dave Fanning loved this album at the time

i knew in 1985 that this was a landmark album, it has a unique charm and character that still remains 21 years later

alexinnyc:

http://vassifer.blogs.com/alexinnyc/2006/01/please_stand_by.html
"Oil & Gold by Shriekback is an undervalued masterpiece that no music collection should be without."

many ilxor folks born in the early 1970s or late 60s love this album

Poetry in motion: Faded Flowers

This is the sound of poisons
the sickness no one knows
No one is crying for us this time
Our shapes are blurring under miracles of snow
Weave a circle round him three times
You have to plan your moves at these times
Our hearts are breaking
One more song to go

Chorus
These eyes are blind
This is a pure thing
These hands I kiss
Tragic as anything
These eyes are blind
This is a pure thing
All splash and hiss
Beyond my measuring

Only the anacrucis
the main event remains
Shameful and naked, out there in the
great cold outdoors
We have to learn these things again
Bathe in this incandescent glow
the leap to something I don't know
There is no doubt upon us when
the greasy men come back again

Chorus
These eyes are blind
This is a pure thing
These hands I kiss
Tragic as anything
These eyes are blind
This is a pure thing
All splash and hiss
Beyond my measuring
These faded flowers
Precious as memory
A veil of cloud
Correct as energy
We had some good machines
But they don't work no more
I loved you once
Don't love you anymore

In high school, my history class was looking for short instrumentals to use as credits music for a film project we were doing. I made my group use "Coelocanth".

(Martian, I know you're a human database but are you sure you don't have the A and B sides of that tape confused?)

this is one of my favorite lyrics of the whole damn decade

agreed. a girlfriend of mine once made me a beautiful post-breakup card with those words on it.

I'm using a friend's cassette-only car while house-sitting and found Oil & Gold for $1.99 at a record store. It sounds better than my 20+-year-old CD version. What a great fucking record. The background singing is strange, and I love all the anthropologist-gone-native lyrics (see also P. Gabriel's "The Rhythm of the Heat" and most of Remain in Light).

Anyway, this is fantastic. This is what other people must hear when they listen to Radiohead but that I never reached with them.

Oh, wait, I guess this thread is more up to date.

we had some good machines
but they don't work no more
I loved you once
don't love you any more

and you know
this is nothing special
just one slit
and we could lose ourselves forever

my feelings for this record are, like, blood-deep. being nineteen and desperate and alive and futureless on a dance floor in Portland dancing to "Nemesis" was a huge early glimpse of the possibilities of music for me, the depth of community possible on the dance floor, the intensity of the bond among people responding to the same beat, the same words. finding out about "Malaria" was just icing on the cake. I always forget this album when people ask me for my all-time list, but I shouldn't, because it made a huge impact on me.

Shriekback is one of my most favorite bands, they really hit something primal inside. Their funk-post-punk fusion still works for me, especially on the first few albums but everything they've done has something to offer. "Oil & Gold" was my introduction and one of my main summer 1985 jams. And it's getting a deluxe reissue any day now. Here's the contents of the bonus disc:

CD 2: Bonus Disc
1. “Suck” - Live Hatfield Poly (Shrk3)
2. “Mothloop” – Live Hatfield Poly (Shrk3)
3. “Feelers” - Live Hatfield Poly (Shrk3)
4. “Nemesis” - Extended
5. “Nemesis” - Arch Deviant Mix
6. “Fish Below the Ice” – Single Edit
7. “All Lined Up” - B-Side “Fish Below the Ice”
8. “My Spine (Is The Bassline)” - B-Side “Fish Below the Ice”
9. “Fish Below the Ice” - The Plankton Enriched Mix
10. “Fish Below the Ice” – Dance Mix

Those are decent bonus tracks but the real thing that will have me forking out the dough is the prospect of hearing this thing remastered. I had no idea it was finally coming out! Link, Gerald?

Like aero and Gerald and Dan, Shriekback struck a deep chord with me when their shit was coming out. That blend of esoterica and body music and eels. I tried so hard to imitate them on my Tascam in 1986, thinking I was clever...

I'm living in a neon house

It came out today in the UK, apparently. Using the original UK cover too:

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2011/08/08/shriekback-oil-and-gold-reissue-remaster-tracklist/

yall can add me to the shreikback army.

do i abuse mod powers to spell that right, prob not

We know what you mean, private.

I've never read a single interview with these guys, but I'm curious what inspired this way of writing lyrics. Again, it's kinda like Remain in Light and Peter Gabriel, but so dense and so much its own thing, so primal and contemporary at once.

otm! there was nobody really quite in this poetry-meets-the-dance-floor groove - so immediately apprehendable but so dense & rich. "this is the splendor of our achievement/caught in the airstrike/with a poison kiss" - there's talking heads in there ok but "this is the splendor of our achievement" is up on its own level

"call in the airstrike"

love this record so much

as soon as i saw that oil and gold was getting reissued, i knew it was going to be one of the cherry red labels !

still, i aint complaining

will be interesting to hear this reissue against the semi-legit remastered edition that barry released via the bands website years back ..

Why is it bad that it's Cherry Red? Do their reissues tend toward the sonically lackluster?

Don't know how much of the live stuff and alt mixes from that bonus disc might be from "The Dancing Years," but that's a Shriekback album I own and NEVER play.

The Hatfield live stuff is good, they released a whole disc of it through their website which I have. Dates from around Jam Science IIRC.

"Fish Below The Ice" B sides also important and i don't think those were on Dancing Years (which I, too, practically never played).

Why is it bad that it's Cherry Red?

not bad at all. just seems that all the 80s reissue stuff (and 60s, 70s etc) that i want is on one of the many cherry red sub-labels ..
they are clearly on a roll and getting access to stuff that the original labels just cant be arsed with.

Please let them do Jam Science...

yeah. i agree. thats one album that hits all the right spots.
prefer that over oil & gold, depending on my mood (and hour of the day), its my fave shriekback album.

You gotta watch out with Cherry Red - they've been known to press poor vinyl transfers and even fade tracks early in order to make more fit.

It certainly features some of the best heavily-processed lead guitar sounds ever and amazing songwriting.

But it contains 'Suck' which gives an advantage to Oil & Gold.

xpost

Can I just -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bMM61Y5CEU

You have no idea how much I love this song and video. Both rule so damn hard.

I think those of us on this thread may have some idea

:)

You've heard the whole album, right? "Fish Below The Ice", "This Big Hush", "The Only Thing That Shines", "Faded Flowers", "Malaria" and "Everything That Rises Must Converge" are all as good as "Nemesis" (a few of them are BETTER :-0)

One of my all-time favorite albums. Life without it is unthinkable.

I LOVE YOU BEST BUT IT'S ALL A MESS

lyrics sites are suggesting it's "when it's all a mess" but I had this album on tape and had to go w/what I heard

gotta admit i slept on this @ the time of release but once again...ty ilm :)

Ok, so I just did some quick A/Bing of the new deluxe version of "Oil And Gold" with the original, as well as the bonus tracks. My conclusions:

- The new version of the album is a bit 'hotter', i.e. compressed and loud, but otherwise sounds good. Nothing revelatory, mind you.
- Of the bonus tracks, the only rare item is "Fish Below The Ice (Dance mix)" which has never been on CD before. The extended version of "Nemesis", the one with the "Apocalypse Now" sample, was on a Richard Blade compilation and the live tracks were on a fanclub CDR so they're nice to have here. All the other O&G-era tracks have been on Shriekback compilations.
- Why did they include "Lined Up" and "My Spine"? And "Lined Up" is CLEARLY from vinyl! Wtf?!

All in all, a nice expansion of the album, but nothing that should make you run out and upgrade your copy.

any advise in sleevenotes re jam science reissue ?

cos that would be the one for me ..

Why did they include "Lined Up"

'Cos it rules so hard! Dave Allen absolutely on fire here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-R4XKuI7rA&feature=related

No argument there but it's not from the "Oil & Gold" period!

guess its being included on this reissue as the track was dropped onto an extra 12" with the 12" of 'below the ice' (oh the days when labels gave away free 7"/12" singles - the double pack !) that came out during O&G campaign.
embossed cover as well - hold the cover at an angle, and you can see some secret fish

http://www.discogs.com/Shriekback-Fish-Below-The-Ice/release/535819

The backing vocals/shrieks on Nemesis are possessed. Redonk. Incredible song.

I really liked Big Night Music too -- no big reissue of that yet eh?

BNM : a perfect album.
i love it.
very different to the earlier material, yet still, very much in line with the shriekback story.
would like to think if there is a reissue, then this could be a digitally sourced remaster/reissue.

They never really put a foot wrong until go bang and even then they made up for it in short order with the v underrated Sacred City

There is nothing I love more than the shriek vibe

They never really put a foot wrong until go bang

this. otm.

The extended version of "Nemesis", the one with the "Apocalypse Now" sample,

This makes so much sense that they would sample this, since Oil & Gold pretty much feels like sailing up the river to find Col. Kurtz.

Good essay on "Nemesis" here:

http://marchvladness.com/#/round2-siouxsievsshriekback/

Huh, thanks for the link, that was an interesting read.

that was unexpectedly excellent! also i can confirm that in minnesota too, c.1985, i never heard the term 'goth' and 'batcaver' was the closest equivalent i heard at the time

"Death rock" was what I heard in Massachusetts, but with "goth" spreading around 1986.

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