HW: New album...

[Jon Jarrett]

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004, Kevin Sommers wrote:

> On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 19:11:14 +0200, Henderson Keith <keith.henderson at PSI.CH>
> wrote:
>
> >Hey Folks ... I just thought that I
> >might persuade one of you fine folks who has been taking part/following
> >the discussion to clue us clueless people in as to what the general
> >consensus it.  (Yeah, I know, I know, half the people hate it, and half
> >the people love it, right?)

        I was quite scared, actually, when I discovered that somewhat
against my jaded expectations there's bits in those samples I rather
like. It's hard to judge a whole track from what's there, of course, but
if quality awareness has been sufficient to pick the best bits, maybe it
was also present at the moment of creation? Or maybe that's too much to
hope for. Anyway, roughly:

To Love a Machine - mmm, nothing special I thought but at least it's
        there. I can get on with this perfectly well, and it does have
        the guitar we want, even if it's still a techno number in real
        terms;

Greenback Massacre - not Ali's finest hour, and as sampled here sounds
        oddly mixed compared to the others;

Spirit of the Age - about as good as could be expected I suppose. Wright
        isn't Calvert but he's putting some expression into it at
        least. The whole association with him still irks me, though. I
        suppose if it does them some good it may have been worth it but
        he'd have hyped the album without it I'm sure;

Out Here We Are & Take Me To Your Leader - I like both of these a lot, at
        least once `Out Here... ' is past the first break (I can't say I
        like the sax synth either but hey), it's as if Brock's been going
        to see the Ozrics and realised the truth of their little yin-yang
        badge with the guitar and synth wrapped into each other. This is
        techno, again, but techno which successfully incorporates the
        space chords of Alan's _Alien 4_ wavestation work or the real
        guitar crunch. Crossover territory and probably my favourites
        except for...

Sunray - we already knew this was great, and except in one small feature I
        think this does that all right. That small feature is the extra
        backing vocals in the final `never...' in the chorus. It sounds
        like Ali, and it's not harmonising right. Please, Dave, if by some
        chance you're reading, take that backing vocal out and let Arthur
        get that anthemic note by himself, its presence is weakening a
        classic which should be the follow-up single without any question;

Digital Nation - ech, less keen on this, sounds like a Star Nation
        leftover, not that I've anything against the Star Nation stuff but
        this wouldn't have made their cut;

Reality of Poverty - presumably, from the lyrics, the song that was called
        `Population Overload', which makes me pleased that it's not the
        _Distant Horizons_ track revamped, but unfortunately it's not even
        as good as that one...

Angela Android - blimey, Richard, I didn't know you had this kind of smut
        in you, this is worthy of Lemmy, I love this, techno though it
        be. No prizes then for guessing whose the obsession with robot sex
        is then...

Letter to Robert - it is what it is, I guess; I'd like to hear the full
        track, but I'm not sure how many times... I'm also curious about
        how much of a connection with `Robert' it really has. References
        to mobile phones and terrorists sound very current for pre-1989,
        unless the idea that `Robert' is Calvert is one of my own and not
        something that was actually said somewhere.

        I think the worrying thing about this in some ways is that all the
stuff I like here is either halfway or all the way towards techno. There
doesn't seem to be much actual rock beyond `Sunray'. But if the album
matches the quality of what's here (assuming that these mixes are only
preliminary, or else that mastering for CD will be rather higher-quaklity
than these MP3s...) I suspect I'll play it a fair bit. The other worrying
thing is that I mentioned these clips on a BBS I inhabit and three other
people leapt to download them (one `for a friend'), and responses were
generally positive. I'm not used to the mention of Hawkwind there (not
something I do infrequently) eliciting that kind of response. Perhaps
there is a market for songs about shagging robots that Hawkwind have
cunningly identified? Yours,
                             Jon

ObMP3s: Nil8 - _Eunuch_
--
                Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College, London
    jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk/ejarr01 at students.bbk.ac.uk
  "As much as the vision of the blind man improves with the rising sun,
       So too does the intelligence of the fool after good advice."
       (Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, late-eight/early-ninth century)