Glad 'Fat Mama Kick' got some votes here, I love that one, it's all about the effects on the vocals and that descending synth/bass hook.
― Gavin, Leeds, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 13:09 (eleven years ago) link
Shocked at the placement of "Fat Mama Kick" (love the saxophone solo, nicely prefiguring Evan Parker's involvement on Climate). Thought it'd be neck-and-neck with "The Electrician."
― 5-Hour Enmity (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 6 November 2012 15:30 (eleven years ago) link
Fat Mama Kick's the weakest of the four. It's not awful or anything, but I'm surprised it won level-pegging with the Shut Out which is maybe the funkiest thing he's done since The Old Man's Back Again
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Tuesday, 6 November 2012 15:41 (eleven years ago) link
The Electrician > Fat Mama Kick > Nite Flights
I can't listen to Shut Out - too far into the late 70's kitsch spectrum and that lead guitar is just terrible - foreshadows similar atrocities on 'Climate...' where a number of potentially great songs are ruined by those dated elements... terrible 80's drum sounds, fretless bass, &c. Nite Flights is also a little too close to conventional disco but there's just enough strangeness in the arrangements to save it.
― alb indys, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 16:32 (eleven years ago) link
you're dead to me, whoever you are.
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Tuesday, 6 November 2012 16:33 (eleven years ago) link
"Fat Mama Kick" is up there with anything on Tilt or The Drift. There, I said it. Gavin OTM re: vocal effects.
― 5-Hour Enmity (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 6 November 2012 16:44 (eleven years ago) link
no it isn't.
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Tuesday, 6 November 2012 16:49 (eleven years ago) link
Oh yeah, and Bronson was really good, Dwight Yorke.
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Tuesday, 6 November 2012 16:50 (eleven years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 17:07 (eleven years ago) link
Strangely, as a huge huge Scott Walker fan, I don't rate this record very highly. The spell is cast but the magic is lost.
Partially I think it's that peculiar proggy rhythm section sound that suits Soft Machine and other Canterbury bands so well? I don't like it here. And the orchestral arrangements are recorded so hot and bright, they sound too much like "here I am" instead of part of a landscape. They are written like hybridized and inferior versions of stuff from Scott 1-4. It's very clever but doesn't sound otherworldly the way that so much of Scott's other stuff does.
I appreciate this record as a precursor to Climate et al. but otherwise I have no love for anything here but "Fat Mama Kick" which totally rules. As Tarfumes said, it'd sit next to "Cossacks are" no problem.
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 17:58 (eleven years ago) link
I mean with "The Electrician", the contrast between the "It's raining today" chord and the ornate bridge + harp swells + Spanish guitar, it just sounds academic to my ears. The great thing about Climate onward is that despite its pretensions it always sounds so effortless and monolithic.
Even the less overt "avant garde" touches of "It's raining today" and "Big Louise", they worked to set the scene, you know? "The Electrician" just sounds like Dave MacRae lifting a couple of bars from "Lontano" with no intention but to Make Difficult Music
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 18:04 (eleven years ago) link
What's difficult about The Electrician?
― Mark G, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 18:38 (eleven years ago) link
Uh it's a single that begins with a dissonant string chord that lasts for a couple minutes, no?
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 19:00 (eleven years ago) link
Come on man, The Electrician is nothing short of amazeballs. You must be shrooming...
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Tuesday, 6 November 2012 23:16 (eleven years ago) link
... I think he is. All in all, I prefer the material on here to "Climate of Hunter", though I like that album a lot (poll perhaps?).
Nite Flights is also a little too close to conventional disco
Uh, are you sure you've heard any disco?
― Named locally as Tom D (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 12:48 (eleven years ago) link
(Love to have heard Scott, with or without the bros., tackling conventional disco btw!)
― Named locally as Tom D (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 12:50 (eleven years ago) link
Actually, a remix of "Cossacks Are" for the disco would possibly be like Lennon/Ono's "Walking on thin ice"
― Mark G, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 12:53 (eleven years ago) link
The disco influence is what MAKES Nite Flights IMO. Scott possesses a surprisingly funky side he lets out on occasion (Man from Reno, Nite Flights, The Old Man's Back Again) and he totally rides it.
The Shut Out is great because - that guitar sound is great. totally spindly and howling, works well with the atmosphere - funkaholic bassline, overdriven guitars, an urgent nocturnal caper - no idea what the words are about but it's the imagery what they conjure that makes the song: "Throw out those gimmicks to the boys", "how will we know the great doll?" (which I hear as "great dog" or "great door"), "Something attacked the Earth last night" - it all adds up to some immense apocalyptic urban invasion of some sort.
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 13:00 (eleven years ago) link
I like your posting style dog latin you are very generous! But: "funkaholic" :/
― unreadable kristeva translations i have thrown (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 13:14 (eleven years ago) link
okay, maybe not funkaholic, but I am kind of a tweaker when it comes to two-step arpeggiated basslines like that.
I tried out Fat Mama Kick again last night - I see where you're coming from w/r/t pre-Climate Of Hunter but it feels really unformed, like half the production's missing and what's left is this vacuous down-home farty blues riff with Scott not really following the tune at all with his lyric. Maybe that's why people like it - it's plenty dissonant, avant-garde Drift-y, but I just don't hear it as being anywhere close to the quality of the other tracks.
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 13:43 (eleven years ago) link
This person must be one of those "rock instruments are corny!" newkids I've heard so much about.
― Three Word Username, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 14:05 (eleven years ago) link
Maybe that's why people like it - it's plenty dissonant, avant-garde Drift-y,
That's a large part of why I like it. But if it were all those things but poorly conceived/realized, I wouldn't like it at all. It's not the dissonance in and of itself that gets me; it's the dissonance in service to pummeling spookiness. I like that he doesn't follow the tune; we already know what he sounds like when he follows the tune.
― 5-Hour Enmity (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 14:31 (eleven years ago) link
"it's the notes he's NOT playing" ;-)
― make like a steak and beef (dog latin), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 14:33 (eleven years ago) link
Partially I think it's that peculiar proggy rhythm section sound that suits Soft Machine and other Canterbury bands so well?
Are we listening to the same record? I don't hear that at all! I know Dave Macrae played with Matching Mole but he also played with the Goodies, I'm not saying that this closer to "Funky Gibbon" than Matching Mole but...
― Named locally as Tom D (Tom D.), Wednesday, 7 November 2012 15:10 (eleven years ago) link
lol this is probably the record that's finally gonna get me into Scott stuff
also i like the non-Scott tracks
― blood, loud screaming and nudity (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Wednesday, 16 January 2019 10:14 (five years ago) link
i haven't tried with the gary + john tracks in over 20 years
i remember the other book about scott, not deeper shade of blue but the shorter one with the challops, the guy was into the theory that the other tracks were basically also scott joints w/o scott singing - idk last time i listened they sounded more like failed attempts to poach the vibe of the scott tracks.
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 16 January 2019 15:18 (five years ago) link
btw
the raw meat fist you choke
You mean 'No Regrets: Writings on Scott Walker'?
― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 16 January 2019 15:26 (five years ago) link
The Gary Leeds tracks sound like Scott is involved in them, beyond just playing on them, but the John tracks are terrible, stodgy AOR.
― Never Turn Your Back On Virginia Woolf (Tom D.), Wednesday, 16 January 2019 15:44 (five years ago) link
xpost no. single author. don't think i kept it. published around 98 or so. not bad actually just challopsy
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 16 January 2019 15:46 (five years ago) link
Nite flights babe, it's always the sameLiving the life, every night
― frogbs, Wednesday, 16 January 2019 15:50 (five years ago) link
Jerk the handle!
God, the Scott tracks are just perfect. Gateway drugs for sure.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 16 January 2019 16:22 (five years ago) link
I found the Shutout EP for either 50p or a pound in a house clearance shop among the usual dreck last year. Still in mild disbelief about that
― PaulTMA, Wednesday, 16 January 2019 21:12 (five years ago) link
Funkaholic bass notwithstanding, the secret to “Shut Out” is the double-time hihats.
As a title track voter, I wonder if the secret to its win here is that “The Electrician” is perhaps a smidgeon overly familiar – that it points more directly to his latter period (albeit in a more consonant way) where “Nite Flights” is a bit more of a road less traveled.
― Naive Teen Idol, Wednesday, 3 April 2019 12:26 (five years ago) link
The lyrics on 'Shut Out' do that great thing where there's a lot of imagery but it doesn't really fit into a concise narrative. Your mind fills in the gaps. I love 'Something attacked the Earth last night'
― frame casual (dog latin), Wednesday, 3 April 2019 14:34 (five years ago) link
Fatima Mansions version of "Nite Flights", far superior to Bowie's:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB2gIEzoZsk
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 3 April 2019 14:41 (five years ago) link
"Nite Flights" is the best Scott Track.
I think "Den Haague" and "Fury And The Fire" are great. Was very pleasantly surprised the 5-10 tracks weren't bad.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 27 September 2019 17:02 (four years ago) link
such great sci-fi/horror imagery in 'something attacked the earth last night' and 'how will we know the great doll?'. shades of Thomas Ligotti
― frame casual (dog latin), Saturday, 28 September 2019 10:12 (four years ago) link
realised I've never checked out the other tracks so I'm doing it now. so far Death of Romance isn't terrible
― frame casual (dog latin), Saturday, 28 September 2019 10:13 (four years ago) link
John's tracks are awful, and nothing and no-one will persuade otherwise.
― Let them eat Pfifferlinge an Schneckensauce (Tom D.), Saturday, 28 September 2019 10:25 (four years ago) link
I gave up at Rhythms of Vision
― frame casual (dog latin), Saturday, 28 September 2019 10:31 (four years ago) link
The main riff in "Fury and the Fire" is very Bowie-ish - the song as a whole is not much cop though.
― Let them eat Pfifferlinge an Schneckensauce (Tom D.), Saturday, 28 September 2019 10:34 (four years ago) link
The riff is definitely the best thing. Same with the keyboards in "Den Hague". Everything else about them doesn't spoil those riffs for me (can you call a piano/keyboard part a riff?)
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 28 September 2019 11:36 (four years ago) link
I kinda hate that they so drunk or stoned or stupid they spelled it "Den Haague" tbh.
― Let them eat Pfifferlinge an Schneckensauce (Tom D.), Saturday, 28 September 2019 11:41 (four years ago) link