A lesson in production

Chelsea Girl. Five Stars.

In 1967, Nico was no longer with the Velvet Underground. She'd moved on, interestingly enough, to being a sort of folk chanteuse in New York City coffeehouses. Her act was solo, backed by a variety of guitarists, among them both Tim Hardin and Jackson Browne, both of whom donated songs to her.

With a roster of songs, only one of which did she help write, Nico set up to make this, her first record album. However, her producer, Tom Wilson, tampered with the recordings, overdubbing flute and strings without her consent. (Actually, he'd done a similar thing to Simon and Garfunkel, overdubbing electric instruments onto The Sounds of Silence and releasing it as a single without bothering to get their permission)

I don't think Nico herself liked this record.

Jackson Browne had a hand in writing The Fairest of the Seasons. It is quite nice, but Nico's voice is a slap in the face. You'll either get used to it or bail out. She was tone deaf and emotionally stilted, but if you let go of that, there is an extraordinary beauty hidden beneath. Musically it's very much chamber pop, lots of strings and an elegant, stately melody.

These Days is a straight pop song from Browne's pen. If you're still here after The Fairest, this one is easier to get into and Chelsea Girls is probably your cup of tea. It's got a sad, beautiful lyric. She was lucky to get such excellent material.

Little Sister is a Cale/Reed offering with a hypnotic, drawn out and gently haggard quality. It flows over you and into the distance.

Winter Song is somewhat fiercer. John Cale's imagistic lyric is a bit of a mouthful at times and makes no real sense.

It Was a Pleasure Then feels like a Velvet Underground outtake. She cowrote it with Reed/Cale (the latter provides his memorable demon-possessed feedback). A morose, eight minute epic of avant-gardeness. The wordless chanting comes right from the ancient world and Nico and the band sound like they're jamming full across the room. It's the most difficult cut; also the eeriest.

Side two comes up with Chelsea Girls (Sterling Morrison was on board for this one). Flute pretty much defines this one. It is very repetitive, problematic at seven minutes. Lyrically, the most Velvet of the whole set. It's snapshots of denizens in the Chelsea Hotel, for God's sake. The mood of urbane decay fits perfectly onto the rest of the album.

I'll Keep It With Mine is a Bob Dylan song. He never got around to releasing his own version, but Judy Collins had sung it, and later on Sandy Denny with Fairport Convention wound up with it. It's extraordinarily upbeat for Nico, and she does sing it with sincerity. I did say she was emotionally stilted, yet a strange degree still gets through that incredibly flawed German voice.

Somewhere There's a Feather is Browne's work and another lovely, good sentiment. With Dylan it forms a nice couplet of sunshine and hope on what is quite an ominous album.

Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams, a Lou Reed song, starts spiralling back into darkness. Highly poetic and very appropriate.

Finally, there is Tim Hardin's Eulogy to Lenny Bruce. Lenny was a stand-up comic who make obscenity his trademark. He died via drugs. Nico sings dispassionately in one ear while a guitar plays a waltzing tune quietly in the other. The starkest moment, and a strong finale to an album whose atmosphere is simply astonishing. Even with that damn flute.

I personally do not mind it, or her voice. And I think the cover art ought to be on a list of 100 Greatest Album Covers. She looks like a dark Joni Mitchell and it perfectly encapsulates the sound of the record.

Oh no! It's another long review!

Neil Young. Five Stars.

Just a few months after Buffalo Springfield's demise (the band had died from ego: a rather common rock malady) Neil Young came out with his self-named solo debut. Because of comflicting information, I haven't been able to figure out whether it came out in late '68 or early '69. However, the record didn't go anywhere either way, and he changed tactics on the followup. As part of my continuous feud with AllMusic I noted that they don't think it necessary to hear this one. My expectations were quite low, but I found it surprisingly enjoyable.

It starts off with The Emperor of Wyoming, which I love for its sheer ridiculousness. You're alone on the world stage for the first time, and you're going to introduce yourself with a rosy instrumental? Seriously, it's one of the sunniest tunes I've heard from Neil, driven by acoustic guitar and some pleasantly wistful strings.

The Loner is a crunchy rock song, the hit on an album of non-hits. The lyric has some nice turns of phrase, though it's entirely straightforward. The musical bridge ties it back into The Emperor of Wyoming, and it is one of the few songs on here that sounds complete.

If I Could Have Her Tonight is two minutes of a lovely melody and Neil singing a heartwrendingly sincere little tune. And it's actually that sincerity that saves the album, turning it into a masterpiece of simple statements.

Crunchy electric guitars make a return on I've Been Waiting For You. Great little guitar solo. I used to be most familiar with it via David Bowie's cover some decades later; however, the sentiment sits far more easily here.

The Old Laughing Lady is a six minute acoustic ballad. It's actually rather ominous, though that might be because I can't make heads or tails of the lyric. It's one of the occasional abstruse works. Musically, it features a set of soul singers rising to crescendo (which is pretty neat) and it was arranged and produced with help from Jack Nitzsche.

Nitzsche actually wrote String Quartet from Whiskey Boot Hill, a positively surreal inclusion. It is exactly what it says. One minute of a string quartet. I love violins, and it makes for a nice intermission.

Also, it leads excellently into Here We Are in the Years. This is a song suite in three minutes, as it features several beautiful melodies that never repeat themselves and it never settles into a chorus. Wonderfully plaintive at points and featuring a nice piano.

What Did You Do To My Life? Well, here's a sad one for you. The production is odd. Very buzzy, and I'm not sure why. Terribly unfinished; it's mostly just a chorus.

I've Loved Her So Long takes up those soul singers again. It's all chorus, but rather more upbeat...in a wistful way.

That ends the thematic album, as the last track is nine minutes of spare, upfront acoustic guitar, with Neil singing a dark, hallucinatory lyric. It's dour and serious as anything, and on my first listen I hated it. "Like Dylan, only bad" I thought. Listening a second time, knowing what to expect, I found it so weird and bizarre a coda that it simply added to what is overall a rather eccentric record. So, if you start out thinking The Last Trip to Tulsa is pretentious rubbish, give it another chance.

The Neil Young album is only a little over half an hour in length. Most tracks are fragments, so they form a cohesive whole and don't really stand well alone. The overall flavour is rather countryish, and of course, it's just been remastered, so everyone's making a fuss over that. I don't know anything about it, so I can't really comment. I'm just endorsing the record, which I find immensely enjoyable. The rest I'll leave to the audiophiles.

The Monday Review

The Implied Neutral Sons. Five Stars.

One year after The Ballad of Ariel Piccolo, Neutral Sons teamed up once more, this CD being the result. Englishman Mark Cottrell took the production helm, designed the artwork and gained solo songwriting credits for the first time. Hence, The Implied has a more cohesive sound than Ariel Piccolo and it is also a more diplomatic work.

Now, a quick word about the title. It's a rather awkward joke, as "The Implied" is quite literal. "The" is written on all the songs as T'

With that explained, it's on to the opening number T'Conference. A loop that sounds a bit like a party played backwards gets it going, then a tinny little riff puts the song into focus. Richard Knutson (the American) handles all the vocals. It's not terribly memorable, but it's high quality. What's it about? Beats me.

It leads into T'Devil's Kiss, a soothing track. This is Cottrell's work. It's one of those "woman let me down" songs, and it's really a nice interlude, resigned but not complaining in tone.

T'Donkee puts the record into trippy waters. Lots of neat turns of phrase make it a solid standout.

T'Face of T'Shine (?????) passes the vocals back to Knutson. It's full of loops, therefore full of ear candy. It's rather woozy, complimenting the black and white cover art.

T'Frequency has fantastic percussion. Oh, it's weird. Only one verse, sung in unsettling duet. Its meaning is too deep for me, but the whole thing has an atmosphere of the sinister and uncanny.

T'Hole continues to work in the bizarre. Knutson does scat vocals to accent the drums while Cottrell sings some kind of gutter gothic over loungy music.

T'Jaaam Doctor (based on a comedy skit) is a nearly spoken exchange. It manages to be morose, disturbing and funny all at once.

Luckily, we get back to music on the more upbeat Side Two. T'Kalmer almost sounds accessable to start, before breaking into a Talking Heads style chorus. The bridge revves up fast, a fantastic, rocking moment. The verses make a nice contrast, being quite wistful.

T'Oken Old Git (stretching the naming joke here) is a complete rock tune. The lyric is hilarious. The whole thing sounds like a pastiche.

T' Old Queen (that's the male sort, I do believe) is a rather sunny track, bouncy and light. Short, and with an excellent coda.

T'Spacebook starts with more runaway zaniness. Ignoring that, it becomes another excellent song. Guitar driven, with Cottrell's backing vocals standing in for percussion. Knutson sings in his "hip" voice about what appears to be internet popularity, though it is somewhat abstruse.

T'Stones is an ancient Knutson song he had lying about. It was dusted off and revitalized for this record, though Cottrell only adds backing vocals. Pure class. (I'll refrain from further comment, due to my own extremely favorable bias)

That being such an interesting, serious song, these guys just had to take the mickey out of themselves with T'Ziki Bint. It's purposefully camp, the lyrics fun and dumb. It's a good-natured closer, and will keep most people from ever taking The Implied Neutral Sons seriously. However, it can grow on you.

That's the album. A well-crafted hour's worth of entertainment. When Ariel Piccolo came out, I was skeptical as to how they'd top it; however, they have done so. The Implied is a far more unified listening experience, thereby making it another step up in this musical partnership. Now I only wonder how they'll ever improve upon it next time.

See you next Monday.

Coming Soon...

I've finally got a publication schedule. A new review every Monday. This upcoming one is as you see. Check back then.

Who's for Hawaii?

A Bestiary of the Creatures. Five Stars.

I don't usually do complilations, but this one is a cohesive library: it is the collection of pre-Boomerang Creatures, containing their debut EP Wild Things, the album Feast and couple of singles.

The Creatures were a spin-off of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Siouxsie Sioux and drummer Budgie teamed up in 1981 and made Wild Things, seemingly as an experiment with no intention of it becoming a long-running off-shoot.

Wild Things is five tracks worth of jungle percussion that holds promise not always lived up to. It gets off to an explosive start with Mad-Eyed Screamer. Anyone familiar with the Banshees will notice that Sioux didn't really have to change her writing style to accomodate the extremes of exotica that are the trademark of early Creatures.

So Unreal proves that Budgie is simply an amazing percussionist. The whole track is nothing but percussive elements and Sioux's reverberating voice. The melody makes it beautiful.

But Not Them has energetic drumming, I'll give it that. But it's repetitive to a fault. Sioux sings all three verses exactly the same, and then repeats them in the same order. A highly boring track.

Wild Thing is dissonance incarnate. Lots of theatrical pauses and her voice grates. Moving along...

Thumb is lovely. Soft traffic sound affects(it's about a hitchhiker), the percussion a gentle accent, Sioux nearly a cappella to start. It's haunting and understated, very slowly gaining power. It's a relief after the last two and a high point to end the EP on.

However, it's only an indication of things to come. In 1983, a year after the Banshees' creative highpoint of A Kiss in the Dreamhouse, the Creatures returned with the full album Feast. Taking Hawaii for inspiration, it opens with bonechilling, howling metallic dementia. Then gentle wind chimes on the tide take over while she sings the beautiful Morning Dawning. This is the only record I think she did where she lets other singers on. Wordless chanting backs her up on this elegant lament.

Inoa'Ole doesn't have English lyrics. It's the strangest song they ever did, featuring prominent chanting (courtesy of The Lamalani Hula Academy Hawaiian Chanters) which fades out as Budgie and Siouxsie come into play. She vocalises wonderfully and it is highly atmospheric.

Ice House is an erotic glance at tropical flowers. It's weird and suitably disturbing and gothic. Like much of Feast, it's not so much a song in itself, as it blends into the tracks before and after.

Therefore it segues perfectly into Dancing on Glass, an imagery packed little gem.

Then it's on to the good-natured Gecko. Percussion is fabulous, and the song is memorable. It's silly nonsense, which is rare from Sioux. There's also Jungle background (recorded in somebody's backyard) which adds colour.

Sky Train is a torrential downpour of drums. This one is Budgie's show. Sioux howls a bit. Her one line is buried. It's a really freaky "tune," but the ambiance fits perfectly onto the rest of the album.

Festival of Colours gets back to tribal chanting, with Sioux joining in. It's a wonderful track; sounds like the title, which is all you need to know.

Miss the Girl was the single. It got to No. 21, which isn't bad for a rather eccentric, though beautifully crafted track with a disturbing lyric apparantly about an abusive relationship.

Next up is A Strutting Rooster. Just like Sky Train, it's a drum powerhouse. Scarce any lyric and Sioux drowns her voice in echo anyway. Actually, the lyric is a traditional Hawaiian riddle.

More sound affects open Flesh. It's the finale and exceptionally unpleasant. It moves between Sioux dispassionately describing a decadent party and a dissonant chorus that flies in the face of the overall mood and dissolves in the end into cacophonous noise.

Then there's the B-side to Miss the Girl, and idle curiosity called Hot Springs in the Snow. It's an instrumental with no melody to speak of. Percussive noodling with a return from that metallic voice on Morning Dawning.

Lastly, two months after Feast and Miss the Girl, another single came out: Right Now/Weathercade. The latter plays first. Weathercade is probably one of the Creatures best tracks. It's got the exotic edge still, but also manages to stand as a good song. By far most of Feast blends into a one-of-a-kind atmosphere, but when taken apart, only a few of the songs are good standing alone.

Lastly, there's Right Now. Finger snapping and...a big band! The lyric was originally for Mel Torme back in the sixties and how the Creatures got ahold I'll never know. It's a hilarious pastiche and also a nifty little tune in its own right. The single made it to No. 14 in the U.K.

The Creatures disbanded until the late eighties when Boomerang, their most celebrated work, came out. Inspiration turned to Spain for that more accessible album.

If your favorite Banshees records are the McGeogh triptych, and you wish they'd done something afterwards with half as much bite, this is the record to get. Feast is completely out of print and A Bestiary manages to come to just 60 minutes, which is pretty decent for a comp.