Best latter-period Scott Walker album

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

Cue is another one that I find creepy enough that I can't listen to it in certain states of mind. the concept of the flugelman- brrrr...! The Drift was the first of these albums that I ever heard and while I'm happy to listen to the others p much any time, I always feel a sense of dread when I go to put on The Drift

Surprised Climate of Hunter beat-out Bish Bosch (can't remember whether I voted for the latter or Tilt). But I've decided to spend some quality time with CoH as I always saw it as the odd-one-out in his catalogue. I'd never realised how tremendous Rawhide is - those whirling strings!

foot, knee, shaggy belly, face
famous hindlegs

thank you to this thread for prompting me to look into whether The Drift is still OOP on vinyl; it is not, and so I bought it.

sadly newer editions (mine included) don't come with a full lyric sheet

Happy 75th to my soul guide

yeah, ride on!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V01oQ_BsX00

"how you always embrace the new, and how you free so many artists. thank you especially for your generosity of spirit, when it comes to other artists."

should be completely directed at Scott himself, too.

He's publishing his lyrics, interview here:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jan/15/scott-walker-sundog-book-lyrics-interview

“But I can rate them, the albums, as I go along. Not the early ones, because I’ve no idea any more, but I can say the success rate of, say, Tilt, was about – from what I wanted to get – 65%. And then the next album was 75%, and on and on until I hit Soused, which was pretty perfect.”

Deluxe edition is € 500 :-/ Normal edition page leads to a 404.

https://scottwalkerbook.com/

£ 500

jeezo

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