Best latter-period Scott Walker album

I still think So used is a really good album. I do wonder if they could have had Scott being less of a leader and being as metal macabre as he could. Probably not.

Tilt may also be my favourite because it came first but "The Cockfighter" is possibly what really settles it. "It's a beautiful night" is my favourite Scott Walker moment ever.

It was The Cockfighter was what put me off that album at first. It sets a 90s-industrial tone that feels dated to me. Luckily the rest of the album doesn't really do that.

Is there room on ILM for a 'songs about apes in captivity' thread?
Captain Beefheart - Apes Ma
Scott O))) - Herod 2014
Manic Street Preachers - Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky

And let's not miss out David Dundas' "Guy the Gorilla"

Joanna Newsom - Monkey and Bear

I listened to Tilt at the weekend, it dips in the middle and some of the tracks are too long (esp. Bolivia 95, tho it's stll great), I'll probably vote for it though. I think Climate probably has the best lyrics though, most memorable anyway.

need to spend more time with Climate... I do like it but it feels compromised by the period it came out, 'No Scott it's the eighties, we HAVE to have fretless bass and wet drums and a video of you dancing around a car in a rolled-up blazer, it's THE LAW'

all that stuff is cool

it's okay but I don't imagine it as being the sound in Scott's head. it feels like a label intervention to me

I doubt that very much.

no way man scott would've been like "man I hate that 80s shit what is this the eighties?"

I'm gonna roll my sleeves down and just you try and stop me.

Tilt may have been an achievement conceptually but I've never felt it was that compelling sonically. The Drift is one of the best sounding albums I've ever heard.

My only complaint about The Drift onward is that Scott imo has not yet found a melodic sensibility to match the wildness of his adventurousness as a producer. More often than not he sounds like a Phantom-Of-The-Opera-bot stuck in recitative mode. Small complaint, bc these albums are all great

lol wins

Tilt. My all time favorite album (perpetual tie with Laughingstock).

Ilxors otm itt that the subsequent albums are a bit more "this then that" structurally speaking. But WHAT thisses and thats!!!!

Tear-bringing CoF moment not yet mentioned: the swarming cloud of overdubbed evan parker saxes!

So what's the report on Childhood OST? I've been pleasurably postponing buying it.

Well, there was that Pulp album... (XPosts)

I remember buying And Who Shall Go To The Ball? upon release and thinking it was bollocks.

I enjoyed the film on the big screen. would maybe have got bored if I'd watched it on the telly but came out feeling rewarded. shades of Barry Lyndon but maybe that's cos I saw that film a few weeks before. anyway - very effective soundtrack but not really anything I'd listen to for fun

Tilt is a masterful album.. The Drift, while it sets up an impressive atmosphere, doesn't seem to exceed the sum of its parts as Tilt does.

"Tilt. My all time favorite album (perpetual tie with Laughingstock"

Same here on both.

So, Tilt, but Clara from TD and Epizootics! from BB are at least equal to anything on Tilt.

Well, almost... It's actually a three way tie and the third album is Private Parts (The Record)

I love Tilt. It's a very sentimental choice - probably the first "difficult" album I loved as a teenager. I'm as sentimental about the record as I am about the effort it took to love it. Also - if it's okay to say this - it sounds amazing when you're fucked.

By the time Drift rolled around I was too old to make the effort, and five years later I got tinnitus so that put Soused and Bish Bosch out of my zone. I've listened a couple times and find them way too cacophonous. I need the simple melodies like Farmer and Bolivia to make it through the rest.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The Drift is one of the best sounding albums I've ever heard.

― fgti, Monday, November 21, 2016 12:48 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ me too

I love Tilt....it sounds amazing when you're fucked.

See, I think I would make it a point to NOT listen to these records while under the influence of anything! They have me hiding behind the sofa enough as it is when I listen to them straight!

I remember having raptures to "Farmer" and "Rosary", but yeah, The Cockfighter might have been a bit much.

I can't physically listen to The Escape when sober. I once nearly fell off my bike in broad daylight during THAT bit...

"The Cockfighter" is probably in my all time top10 songs by any artist.

Either The Drift or Bish Bosch.

Climate of the Hunter is the one I never managed to get into. I should give it another shot at some point.

I'm probably gonna vote the The Drift. Mostly because Clara is one of the best songs ever recorded. I get that the some of the tracks in the second half are a bit unremarkable, but that just makes "The Escape" so much more effective.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I was having a bad trip once and had to listen to tilt to sort myself out

voted the drift without a second's hesitation but think all these are great

That Donald Duck bit in "The Drift" is definitely the funniest moment in latter-period Scott Walker.

these are all as great as great can be, obv. strange to see an ILM poll where the results are more or less right for a change, good work children.

xp funny but terrifying AF

Well, I don't find it terrifying but fair enough - but I don't really find his music 'terrifying' in general.

I wasn't exactly terrified, but the first time I heard that Donald Duck voice is definitely the most WTF moment I've ever had while listening to music. It was like some scary bit from a David Lynch movie. I didn't think music could do that.

The idea that the void at the center of everything is a malevolent cartoon duck is not a happy idea.

xp yeah, it's the 'man behind the dumpster' of music. it's not so much the voice that scares me than the agonising silence that precedes it

and y'know, if you watch that scene and pause it, it's just an actor with some gunk on his face but it makes my heart leap out my mouth every time.

I might be reading too much into this but on Bolivia '95 when he says 'please don't you laugh, doc' I hear it as 'duck', and the word 'doctorie' (which apparently means 'medicine' in Romanian) makes me think of those plague doctor masks with the beaks

her face xp

Not for the first time, I think you're reading too much into this.(xp) The reason I brought up the duck was I was listening to that track on the bus this morning and I almost LOLed when Donald made his appearance.

The best kind of humour is simultaneously funny and terrifying

Climate of Hunter needs a re-release.

walker used actors dressed as plague doctors in the staging of "patriot (a single)" at that concert he did about 10 years ago

There's this as well, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0LmWUUVvUM

And "the plague"!

... and The Seventh Seal.

There are unspeakable diseases happening in the nite flights tracks too, at least that's the whiff I get

Also "Cue".

I haven't heard the full Childhood of a Leader soundtrack yet or seen the movie, but this piece rocks. A strong Bernard Herrmann/Hitchcock feel.

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

Well, as I said up thread, at the end of 30 century man, Scott said something about maybe doing something that could be rendered in a live environment. Was wondering if that meant doing something like Kate Bush did, but hadn't realised he had already done it.

Must have been hard for Scott to put on without listening to it.

I was there too. Scott Walker is totally right that some things worked and some didn't, but I don't know if we'd agree on what worked.

I was really bothered by the soccer team picture and the guy with make-up and condoms in his stockings because it completely violated my idea of how these songs should look. There were a few other visual things I didn't like that I can't remember.

I was iffy about some of the singers like Jarvis and Albarn but I don't think anyone was bad. One of the opera singers didn't really work for me but it probably wasn't his fault. Wire magazine criticized the choice of some of the more popular singers.

The music was awesome, Gavin Friday was good but the absolute highlight was the dancing corpse lady, it was just perfect with the music.

Something else negative that left an impression was a couple a few rows behind me who clearly wanted to lets us all know that they thought it was all stupid and we were idiots for liking this arty farty nonsense but they were glad they saw Bono at the end when the performers were bowing (Bono just suddenly appeared to lead them out to take a bow). Most of the audience wouldn't hear their booing but anyone in a nearby seat would have.

Overall it was really good.

Lmao I do not remember bono at all

(Fuck those people obv)

why would you pay a premium to sit and slag off a show for being pretentious? surely they kind of knew what they were letting themselves in for?

I don't think they did at all. According to their conversations, they were invited there by friends and were expecting something different, probably 60s style Walker.

I miss the Scott walker in records like 3, 4 and climate of hunter. At this point it would be more unconventional for him to make a straight up record than go more esoteric..feel like the only one who jumped ship after drift

(Bono just suddenly appeared to lead them out to take a bow)

classic bono move

I didn't want to be too cynical and assume it but it did look like he invited himself onstage to show the cool people he hangs out with. People kept wondering if Scott would come out because he apparently was at the event but he never came out.

see also the bono ruins tinariwen concert youtube

so was this his last ever live appearance?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5E1VXaCBW8

I believe so.

and i gotta quit

Wasn't scott visible at the mixing desk? Or am I thinking of his dance piece