Bryan Ferry -- Avonmore

Funny to read that same world-weary-when-he-was-young statement about Leonard Cohen earlier this week.

First listen is giving me a sort of Bete Noire vibe.

New interview:

http://soundcheck.wnyc.org/story/bryan-ferry-release-new-album-after-four-years/

is he awake

Are any of us

not a question?

Stream now live on NPR

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/09/361384563/first-listen-bryan-ferry-avonmore

Definitely pitched in between Bete Noire and Mamouna in terms of energetic/enervating slickness but it has some nice twists from "Soldier of Fortune" on in the arrangements and how he sings the choruses. Title track is almost his "Oh people are all about 80s soundtrack music to urban thrillers now well here's your theme song" move.

A couple of tracks, "Midnight Train" in particular, have had their vocals and chords lifted from early nineties outtakes.

If that's the album cover, that picture looks even older than that. Maybe as old as mid-70s.

The font in the album cover also seems totally lifted from "Avalon"

http://www.gaa.ie/content/images/news/miscellaneous/AvonmoreProteinMilkLaunch.jpg

Misread the album title as Bryan Ferry--Awesome

I haven't listened to it yet, but I have a feeling I know but it sounds like.

A new Ferry album is sort of like a new AC/DC or Ramones album by now.

I think I like it more than Olympia (which I liked) though. Some songs remind me of Frantic.

I'll agree the back half is better.

Interview at the Quietus

http://thequietus.com/articles/16665-bryan-ferry-interview

That's a great piece. Should have ended before the live review stuff, though.

EUREKA

In many ways, your story – the Bryan Ferry story – is all about a steady progression from a dark and witty parody of elitist sophistication towards the real thing.

BF: Well, yeah.

There's a video for Loop De Li:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a0_ko3Vr68

The main guy looks pretty much like Tara Ferry to me.

Vivaroxymusic says it's not Tara. I like the video, though. Not what I was expecting.

Title track on this is awesome.

A couple of tracks, "Midnight Train" in particular, have had their vocals and chords lifted from early nineties outtakes.

Title track on this is awesome.

Absolutely! It's my favorite on the album.

It boasts fewer players than the recent albums, and for the first time since 1994 he dominates the songwriting and keyboard credits.

sw00ds and I discussed the album:

http://rockcritics.com/2014/11/26/roxymania-back-from-the-dead/

My take: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/flesh-for-fantasy-bryan-ferry/

I was wrong – Newmark wasn't on that. So much for that theory.

Here's another: Ferry has the anti-career. I mean, in one respect he's been making the same record for thirty-plus years. But look a little bit more closely and there are little sidebars. The Dylan album. The big band stuff.

And then there's all the jumping around. Around the time of Mamouna he starts acknowledging that he's been in a rut since Avalon and saying his best work was on the Eno Roxy records. So then he begins recording conscious returns to that era of his career on Frantic and in other moments. Then just as he seems to be hitting his stride over the next decade the Avalon stuff comes back into vogue with guys like Terje, Hell and Lindstrom so with Olympia he returns to that era which he continues even more self-consciously on this one.

It's an anti-career. Or career without a trajectory anyway.

It has always been a weird ride for Ferry, if you think about it. He started his career with not one, but two cover albums. Then on his third, he goes for covers and new versions of his old stuff. And then he went with one of the first band reunions ever. None of these things were as common back then as they are today.

Pretty sure those cover albums were practical, in that he had to save his songs for Roxy. It wasn't until Roxy went on hiatus that Ferry solo started to be mostly solo Ferry tracks, right?

Even then, I think the Ferry sound is, in its way, akin to what Peter Gabriel does: records a bunch of stuff with a bunch of people, session guys and guests, then spends months and weeks editing, arranging and assembling the results. I'm pretty sure he's said that his recording process is generally just him and one musician at a time; no two ringers are in the room simultaneously. That's sort of a stuffier version of Eno recording the same song multiple times with multiple groups of musicians then picking the best parts, except Eno goes toward playful anarchy and Ferry goes for precision.

On recording with Johnny Marr (and recording generally):

"I did the keyboards and Johnny Marr's playing the guitar. Then you hear Nile Rodgers enter on the chorus. Marcus Miller's playing the bass. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I tend to start the thing on piano first. I do the sketch on piano. Normally, at home. Then I bring it to the studio later and then start turning it into something. I give them a free reign normally, because I know how sympathetic they will play. Over the years, you get to form really firm musical bonds with people. And I first worked with some of these guys and boys and girls back in '83, so we go back quite a long way."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2014/11/04/361155023/bryan-ferry-shares-new-songs-and-stories-from-his-upcoming-record

I love Ferry, but I do get a vibe that he realizes he can't do this forever and is making up for lost time with tours, albums, interviews, etc.

If there's anything he can't do forever it's sing.

He could just stand on stage and look good.

Me thinks we're just about there.

eh, saw him earlier this year on the Bryan Ferry Rock'n'Roll Extravaganza/Good-Time Revue and he was just fine voxwise

he did look good tho

But some of the songs on the new album really sound like his voice is shot.

I'm really struck by how much his little reconnection with the ol' 70s bite that reemerged with Frantic, Dylanesque and (to perhaps a lesser extent) Olympia has been almost wholly subsumed once again by the Closet Smoothie.

Dylanesque is his worst album.

Def his worst cover. Maybe Ferry is like Morrissey, where the less thought that went into the cover art the worse the album?

this album is a pretty big drop from olympia IMO, because his voice sounds so shot. what's weird though is that reports are that he sounded fine in his live shows a few months ago...

His voice sounded somewhat gone to me back in Frantic but I felt he turned that into a strength, especially in "Don't think twice".

tbh Olympia sounded drab and exhausted in 2010 too. We're talking about gradations of languor here, people.

There are things about it tho that sounded energized, creatively anyway – the Al Jolson-in-a-Gay-Club chorus to "Heartache By Numbers," the Avalon sample driving "You Can Dance." This one sounds like he's falling back into old habits. Again.

what is 'avonmore' in this instance? a quick gis suggests it's an irish brand of fresh custard, but i will begrudgingly consider alternative hypotheses

― john wahey (NickB), Tuesday, September 23, 2014 3:38 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe it's about his crippling addiction to face creams ordered from catalogues delivered by door-to-door agents?

/Dylanesque/ is his worst album.

It may well be but my feelings about "Positively 4th Street" are so strong that it probably colors my perceptions of the rest of it.

Digging into the Horoscope and Alphaville sessions for the first time to see if they reveals anything about his working methods with respect to Avonmore. Former maintains the skeletal funk that resulted on Mamouna, but almost entirely absent the ambient sonics. The latter finds him experimenting with all kinds of contemporaneous dance styles – drum n' bass ("You Can Dance"), hip hop beats ("San Simeon," oddly enough). Interestingly, both kind of end up in a very similar place by the end.

what is 'avonmore' in this instance?

Custard connection would be great and maybe even explain the vocal problems, sadly it seems to be just the studio location at Avonmore Road, Kensington.

I just bought tickets today to see him in August! I haven't bought expensive concert tix on the day of release in forever, but Siren and Manifesto tours remain two of my most amazing concert experiences, and I'm figuring this may be my last chance to see him. I haven't really been keeping up with the last umpteen albums, but Avonmore is sounding good to me today, and recent setlists are very Roxy-retrospective.

Unfortunately he played no Avonmore songs last night.

He did play "Zamba" though!

My review: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/now-theres-no-sense-in-falling-bryan-ferry-live/

saw him a few months ago and he was great. played several Avonmore tracks, i think. plus loads of Roxy Music deep cuts. had a chance to talk to his sax player after the show too, apparently he found her via her previous band on myspace!

excellent version of "Stronger Through the Years" I heard too

OMG this my first time hearing his cover of "Johnny and Mary!"

Very weird, put this on yesterday for the first time in a while, total coincidence! iTunes shuffle had given me the Todd Terje album first, which of course brought me back to this. But then it brought me back to Robert Palmer's "Clues," since I had heard his "Johnny and Mary" out and about the other day, which I rarely do. Usually it's the title track.

I'm listening to Avonmore for the first time, at work on youtube, and I hadn't glanced at a tracklist, so both "Send In The Clowns" and this took me by complete surprise. This is beautiful, but his voice is a sad reminder of what a lifetime of cigarettes will do to a person.

Reportedly he gave them up in the mid '80s.

To be fair, he's in his 70s, or was at least just about there at the time. He pretty much ... sounds his age.

He does on the rest of the tracks; I just thought "J&M" was particularly Leonard Cohen-esque, but some of that may have been purposeful.

"Which Way To Turn" is a gorgeous track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PRJj73J-l8

agreed

On recording with Johnny Marr (and recording generally):

"I did the keyboards and Johnny Marr's playing the guitar. Then you hear Nile Rodgers enter on the chorus. Marcus Miller's playing the bass. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I tend to start the thing on piano first. I do the sketch on piano. Normally, at home. Then I bring it to the studio later and then start turning it into something. I give them a free reign normally, because I know how sympathetic they will play. Over the years, you get to form really firm musical bonds with people. And I first worked with some of these guys and boys and girls back in '83, so we go back quite a long way."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2014/11/04/361155023/bryan-ferry-shares-new-songs-and-stories-from-his-upcoming-record🔗

lol. i can see how that could happen in transcription but someone should have caught it.

also: "free reign"

What'd folks think of Avonmore: The Remix Album? I just noticed it on Spotify and while it seems to have the usual cast of characters—Leo Zero, etc.—I immediately tuned in the Prins Thomas mix of the title track and am enjoying it.

I will say: despite the fact that I'm still not sure what to make of the fact that Ferry fell back into his 80s studio sound for the umpteenth time for his albums proper, for a 70-plus year old man, his commitment to remix culture is fairly impressive.

I read an interview with Ferry a couple years ago where he said he doesn't listen to music at home, just like ambient soundscapes. Seemed like a Ferry thing to say.

eh Avonmore doesn't sound like a Return to the Velvet Fog -- too damn sprightly.

About half those songs would like a word with you, Alfred – esp. the title track, "Midnight Train," "Driving Me Wild"...

Big studio budgets are like Bryan Ferry's personal Death Star ... with the power of three interchangeable rhythm guitarists pulling him ever closer to certain, elegant destruction.

He had as many as three guitarists and four keyboardists on consensus pick Frantic. What I like about Olympia and Avonmore is how his decision to be solo keyboardist focuses the songs. Some song are nothings ("Midnight Train" and "Soldier of Fortune" would be duds on any album).

I find "Soldier of Fortune" to be nice change of pace on this record. "Midnight Train," OTOH, had been kicking around since Horoscope in the early- to mid-90s (featuring no less than NINE guitarists) for no apparent reason.

Truth be told, "Lost" may be my secret favorite on this album – and Ferry is listed as the sole keyboardist on that one. So your theory may not be wrong.

My jams are the title track, "Driving Me Wild" (on which he plays piano and chintzy organ), "Lost," and "One Night Stand." Oh - "Loop de Li" too. So that's almost half the album.

I don't think all the guitarists are indulgent in the way people think. Over the years Ferry enlists different combinations of players to tackle different songs slightly different ways, and in the end he cobbles together the various sessions into one final product. I think that's what takes him so long, not the tracking but the editing and reconfiguration. Like, I bet folks like Marr and Nile are rarely ever in the same room together, let alone the three (!) bassists on the title track. The irony is that the results are often so more or less similarly smooth, as opposed to, say, Eno's results with the same approach he pioneered. As early as "Warm Jets" Eno would take multiple stabs at the same song with different bands, and then pick and choose what makes it to the end, with gleefully chaotic results, like "Needles in the Camel's Eye," which are pretty clearly two bands playing the same song at once.

I think that's what takes him so long, not the tracking but the editing and reconfiguration

oh he's admitted this

See also: Peter Gabriel.

Nine Horses' (D. Sylvian, S. Jansen, B. Friedman) 'Snow Borne Sorrow' is the best '00s album Bryan Ferry never made.

a jam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7UB_0AiLNU

Elegant video, but it's the worst song on his worst album. I was so shocked when I first heard it that I imagined that if someone told me this was a parody, I'd think "how cruel, he'd never write a song this terrible!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQxEYigj9eA

6:45

Elegant video, but it's the worst song on his worst album. I was so shocked when I first heard it that I imagined that if someone told me this was a parody, I'd think "how cruel, he'd never write a song this terrible!"

― Halfway there but for you,

Nah. It can't be the worst when "Soldier of Fortune" or "Midnight Train" exist.

Was this really released seven years ago? 😳

All this time on, the record sounds like what it is: a grab bag of leftovers from the Horoscope and Alphaville sessions, with a few new-ish things mixed on a 256-track Neve desk in his studio castle. Part of me wonders whether Alfred's dislike of "Soldier of Fortune" is that it is Ferry over a guitar a la Dylanesque, one of his least favorite--and most guitar-based--records. "Lost" remains pretty good. "Driving Me Wild" sounds like Dave Stewart may have had a hand in it (tho the credits don't reflect that). The title track is peak late-period Ferry, tho -- and while I'm less enamored with the dying-old-man "Johnny and Mary" and "Send In the Clowns" covers than others, I do enjoy them. The Mamouna retread twenty years on that no one was asking for.

"Loop De Li" is a fun single too.

"Loop De Li" is good, the title track is almost good, the covers are adequately sung but conceptually corny, the rest is weak to terrible.

"Johnny and Mary" is conceptually brilliant.

"Loop De Li" is a fun single too.

Agreed, tho the version on Horoscope ("Your Love Has Died") is superior, largely bc of the comparative power of his vocal (Mamouna probably features his best late-period vocals -- you can hear a little smoke sneak in on Frantic). There are even a few achy "More Than This"-y moments which were stricken from the record around 1997. It's also mixed more skeletally, as was his wont in the early-90s.

Not sure if Trower was involved by that point, but both the voice and mix are superior on the Horoscope "Midnight Train," too -- which still isn't one of his stronger compositions but suits Ferry's urban funk era much better a la "NYC" than the heavy beated return to it two decades later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9JW-NsXzPM

I have no idea what led Ferry to Trower or even about Trower's sideline as producer, but he was the best collaborator outside of Eno that Ferry could've asked for.

"Johnny and Mary" is conceptually brilliant.

I don't think it works as a dirge, all the pathos in Robert Palmer's version comes from the contrast of the downbeat words and the sprightly tempo.

I think it's ... fine as a dirge? But yeah -- I think the Ferry version is both more sophisticated but also less complex, if that makes sense.

I have no idea what led Ferry to Trower or even about Trower's sideline as producer, but he was the best collaborator outside of Eno that Ferry could've asked for.

Yeah, me neither. But Taxi was the first Ferry solo record I bought -- I picked it up when it came out. And even then, I was struck by how it was his simultaneously his Lothario Smoothie persona that shot him to superstardom as well as kind of weird, distant and not particularly commercial. It's still one of my favorites of his.

yall hear this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U32k9zabDjE