CD3 Rykodisc RCD3-1002 (USA)
She's King (3:37)
Listen/Space (5:00)
Frightened Just Because Of You (Alt. Version) (2:54)
OK, after much deliberation (glass of whisky and a joint actually!) I have decided that there are three great posts all equal in merit. Two by Sleepycat and one by Rod. This time:
S l e e p y c a t w i n s !
Sleepcat, click on my name and send me a message with your address if you want this CD. If not, let me know as it equally deservedly goes to Rod!
Here are those three great posts.
Sleepycat
Posts: 23
(1/16/04 8:40 am)
spirit incredible
This is certainly my favourite among all Marty's side projects (including solo work, Noctorum:Sparks Lane, Seeing Stars, and the very nice AAE:Ultraviolet) and one of my favourite half-dozen or so Church side projects overall. I would say that HOIH and Sparks Lane are both more artistically advanced but Spirit Level is extremely cohesive and has a very pretty feeling about it - glistening, mellow, dark in places. It's not a cluttered production at all, so you get to hear Marty's vocal talents to the full (whether it's exuberance on "I Can't Cry", precise timing on "Scandinavian Stare", or bursts of intensity on "Can't Ever Risk An Openness With You"), but it's not just a guy and his guitar either. Very well "produced" fro what it is. The P=A sound is there in many places - most prominently "Turn Away To The Stars" which has much of the guitar blueprint for songs like "Lustre", but as the songs are not as complex as on P=A, what you get is more like P=A-lite dark pop-rock - streamlined and smoothed out for the most part, but not really dumbed down. "Luscious Ghost" has some really nice spacey guitar work on it, but I do find the lyrics on that track more than a little forced, so my favourite tracks are generally the edgier ones - "Can't Ever Risk An Openness With You", "Even Though You Are My Friend", "Saddest House In Stockholm".
I love the guitar work at the end of "Even Though You Are My Friend" - it presages the end of "The Maven" to a degree but it also reminds me strongly of some of Al Stewart's best guitar passages. I have often noticed passing similarities between Marty and Al Stewart in guitar playing, intonation (although Al's accent is totally different) and even sometimes approach to subject matter. In my book this is all generally a good thing. "The Saddest House In Stockholm" is an incredible effort, I'm a bit of a sucker for sympathy for inanimate objects and I do find this song very beautiful and sad, while wondering at the startling way Marty builds the tempo up to breakneck pace from nothing. Ten years later the theme of decay comes back in a different setting in "Chromium" which I think is the best thing he's ever written. After "Saddest House" the remaining two tracks on Spirit Level are nice enough but really second-gear cool-offs compared to what has come before.
To me this is where Marty's songwriting really comes together. On the three albums before this I found his lyrics could be quite fancy but tended to rest on surface impressions and arty prettiness without saying much, (or when they said things those things were often obvious anyway), so most of the time if I listen to one of those records it's the guitar that has my attention. I find "Spirit Level" to be his first fully realised solo album, and I still listen to it a lot.
Still have this on tape. Must get around to upgrading one of these decades.
Sleepycat
Posts: 38
(1/30/04 8:20 am)
Simple Intent
I don't mind the "space-techno instrumental" actually. Not having played this album for a while, I got it out again when I was quoting lyrics from "Walk With You" on one of the aliens threads in the Lounge section, and now I'm actually far more hooked than I was before. "Hooked" is the word indeed because the melodic grooves are pretty strong here, a lot of this stuff is catchy as all hell after a few listens. As I mentioned on my Seance comments on this one, hanging about with David Lane seems to have rubbed off on him in this regard ( not that it wasn't there before, Peter's always been able to write a mean pop song but sometimes I've found lack of tonal variation in the singing or overly washy textures diminished the impact.) His singing on this one is impressive; the Lennon-with-a-touch-of-Reed impression you might get from the rest of this thread sums it up for me pretty well too.
Couple of clear standouts for me on this one. "Leaving" is clever, I like how the dialogue between Peter's and Neige's vocals meanders around and comes back to Margot Smith's "Time is not what it feels ..." line over and over again. The other one is "Natural". Read the lyrics alone and it seems like just such a simple love song but listen and it's something else entirely, so dark and lush and intense. I like the tremory over-the-top "Everybody's left talking to themselves" bit especially here. After I played this a few days ago I had this song stuck in my memory all day.
By the way I've never recommended reading PK's lyrics alone, but I've often been surprised at how rarely their on-paper clumsiness interferes with my enjoyment of the song (happens here and there on this one, but not too bad on the whole). Now that I've read the interview on this thread and seen that they're derived from a kind of vocalese I finally understand why they usually work better than they "should". "Appalatia" is a perfect example of this.
Most of the tracks here break at least some new ground compared to previous albums. One thing I miss compared to Love Era/Irony - "Naked Soul" is quite a strong opener in its own right, but nothing beats being king-hit on track 1 with something as out-there as "Celebration".
Rod
Glow Worm
Posts: 332
(1/31/04 4:13 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del Remembering Remindlessness
This album is special to me as it marks a number of beginings and ends for me. I was lucky enough to pick up the double LP in January 1990 after returning from a holiday on the North Coast of NSW. It was played almost exclusive by me through the rest of that Summer and into my last year of High School. I was 17 and was only just getting into music and hadn't gotten past garage rock at this stage (some would say I still haven't), so it was a real eye opener for me.
Being a bit of a book worm at the time the prose immediately drew me in and I read most of it on the way home. The mixture of reality and fantasy immediately reminded me of the writing processes of my favourite Sci-Fi novelists, Ballard, P.K. Dick etc. - it was grounded in reality but veered into the bizarre. What made this different was that it was grounded in Australian imagery and this made it all the more unique and intriguing. One of the first time's I fell in love with a record without even having put it on the turntable!
There is so much to say about this record. It's one that is hard to descibe to other people due to the different themes and sounds happening. I suppose you could call it an album of dark fantasy that uses folk, electronic and Eastern musical influences to delve into the realms of Sci-Fi, religion and mythology and that it firmly slaps western society in the face.
I love the way it moves along twisting, jumping and folding in on itself. Moving from the sax tinged Sci-Fi of 'Neverness Hoax' through the twisted, melodic pop of 'Life's Little Luxuries' with it's tongue-in-cheek lyrics and into the sprawling psychedlic cover of the Crystal Set's 'She Counts Up The Days'. The way it's sequenced is also wonderful with the grand, majestic, electronic/Eastern influenced mish-mashed mood piece of 'The Amphibian' placed next to the deceptively simple 'Random Pan'. Then there's the desert island, Sci-Fi adventure story of 'Liquid' with it's "fractured memory lyrics" and wonderful wordplay set to a "Star Trek" sounscape.
Placing the second LP onto the turntable you're greeted with 'Goliath' a biblical story with a twist and 'Some Lysergic Africa' a druggy fever dream/past life experience full of tribal rythms that leads into a graceful instrumental in 'Gloriana' (whose title may or may not be a nod to Queen Elizabeth I of England). Then there's 'Danielle' which is like Raymond Chandler meeting Lord Byron in an opium den. Follow that with a slight reprieve in the gentle strumming of 'Excerpt From Charlotte Bay Pde.' before some "electronica" in the form of 'Music From Commercial For Eternity Inc.' and the piss-take rap/atmospheric pop weirdness that is 'No Such Thing' (which is hindered slightly by the drum machine).
The last few tracks are my favourites. 'Soul Sample' is a beautiful Bowie-esque pop song that gives way to the epic '...Elephant God'. This begins with Pagan worship lyrics over a soundscape like one of those overblown Biblical movie epics they like to show at Easter, then moves into something darker and starker before its "heavenly ascension". The last track begins with a Morricone type guitar intro and then shifts into a brooding/soothing sounscape that lets you drift back to Earth. Amazing stuff.
When it was re-issued I found myself coming full circle instead of finishing something a lot of things were begining again, I was turning 30, had just separated from my wife, moved back to mainland Australia and was heading back to school for my first year of teaching. Seeing it in the shops at that time reminded me of that wonderful summer with the head phones on and led me to investigating this album once again. Despite the little flaws I hear now, I still think it holds up well.
Cheers,
Rod
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Another competition soon...................next time (probably about three months off) the prize will be:
One fabulous CD EP (I'll try to get it signed before then). Until next time get reviewing, all reviews from the 15th February will qualify.
