Stegzy's Music Project

A commentary on Stegzy's album collection

Jan 29

Forever Faithless: Greatest Hits – Faithless [#490]

by stegzy

Forever_Faithless_–_The_Greatest_Hits At this point, anyone who knows me personally will no doubt be thinking “Hang on, Dance/Trip hop? Isn’t Stegzy a hairy die hard Prog fan?”. Indeed, but sometimes, with every record collection, you find a “loved genre” busting album or band.  Faithless are one of those bands.

Please don’t think I’ve gone and burnt my Yes t-shirt or thrown out my Roger Dean posters, far from it. I liked a couple of songs by Faithless. Happy cheery dance numbers with a dark and foreboding political message for the youth of the day, which, no doubt, was lost on many. I liked those songs sufficiently to try a few of Faithless’ other albums, this one and Back to Mine.

I left it there. My two favourite songs appeared on the album, Insomnia and Mass Destruction but the other songs were a little bit too beyond my cultural tastes. While similar to Massive Attack in some respects, the later dance tracks take me out of my cultural safety zone. A prime example of when getting a greatest hits album will give you a good idea of whether or not you’ll like a band’s other works too.

2005 best of Cheeky compilations Faithless remixes Trip Hop

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Jan 28

Forever Delayed: Greatest Hits – Manic Street Preachers [#489]

by stegzy

ForeverDelayedNME dubbed this “the album that should not exist”. Bloody hipsters.

I totally wished that the Manics hadn’t been so bloody mainstream or as a youth I’d have so gotten into them. Or so I thought in the nineties, as the “Indie” scene was rapidly pulling the wool over the listening public’s eyes as more and more “indie” bands appeared in mainstream charts, programmes and chat shows.

The Manics were one of those bands that I liked but didn’t want to fully embrace by getting any of their albums. I suppose fear of scorn from my contemporaries added to that, especially as my “indie” mates were all “No mate, the Manics went shit after their lead singer jumped into the Avon Gorge at Clifton”, my goth mates sniggered and said they were too happy and my shoe gazer friends shrugged and gazed depressively into the tips of their brogues whenever I mentioned the band.

Yet nearly every song on this album I like. Yes, I know that’s the purpose of a greatest hits album, but I suppose it is an excellent example of the “if one likes the “best of” then buy it and nothing else approach” as I still like this snap shot of the band’s golden age; Songs so full of hopelessness against a joyful melody. Exactly how Abba are. Artists take note, this works.

2002 best of compilations Indie manic street preachers

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Jan 27

Forever Blue – Chris Isaak [#488]

by stegzy

220px-Forever_Blue_-_Chris_IsaakIn 1995, just when I thought Chris Isaak had given up and gone off to that place where successful musicians disappear to, Isaak released Forever Blue. Nicely timed too, as dramatic changes were taking place in my own life.

Forever Blue was once described as the most “depressing Chris Isaak album ever”, fitting really as Isaak’s childhood sweetheart and wife died during the production of the album, a fact I only discovered last year. This nugget of information helps explain some of the lyrics and the songs on the album.

Regardless of situation, Isaak pulls out all the stops. Moping and pining lyrics dotted with the yearnings of pathetic love sick teenagers bring an extra departure from previous more jovial albums such as San Fransisco Days returning us to the near original classic Chris Isaak of Chris Isaak and Silvertone era. An excellent album for a break up.

This album helped me through the dark years of 1995-1997 and, if you were to jump into a time machine and go to my old flat back then, you’d have probably heard this album repeatedly being played, ingraining itself in my aural memory as a “flat album”.

Great stuff.

1995 Chris Isaak Rock and Roll Rockabilly

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Jan 26

Forever & Ever – Fields of the Nephilim [#487]

by stegzy

R-571075-1165231721.jpegMore brooding beats from the cadaverous cowboys that are Fields of the Nephilim taken from the soundtrack of their video release Forever Remain.

I suspect after Ginger Chris’ cassette finally drove the music industry into an irretrievable spiral of descent, my enthusiasm for music waned too. As I wandered around the global car boot sale that was the early internet of 2004-2010, I would pick up remnants of forgotten things called albums from the digital flotsam and jetsam and store them for humanity on my hard drive. If it wasn’t for my actions I’m fairly certain the music industry would have been completely destroyed by home taping.

Forever & Ever is a rip of a live video album and features many of FONs “greatest hits”, all favourites of mine. I could have quite happily left my appreciation of the band there but subsequent releases enticed me in with the promise of good music. I suppose by then, the zeitgeist had leaked from the loosely sealed bottle of life and I began to realise that the new rules and flavours brought about by the demise of the music industry were bitter and unpalatable.

 

1991 best of compilations Fields of the Nephilim gothic Live Memories Soundtracks

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Jan 25

Force of Gravity – Sylvan [#486]

by stegzy

Sylvan - Force of GravitySince we last met Sylvan with their release Artificial Paradise, I’ve actually grown to like them more. I’ll even go as far to say Artificial Paradise is quite a clever little concept album and deserves more ear time. Force of Gravity is another one of those albums that have not had anywhere near the amount of ear time as I would have liked. Getting old sucks kids, don’t do it.

Anyway, Force of Gravity, Sylvan’s seventh studio album, shows a great deal of maturity considering it was released seven years after Artificial Paradise (the band’s second album). Yet still we get the rich gravy of their sound pouring over our aural Sunday dinner complete with their lyrical roast potatoes and conceptualised roast meat (or nuts if you’re aurally vegan).  It’s as if the band have actually bettered themselves rather than tear themselves apart in an effort to maintain the successes of their earlier output.

The album has, as in the opening statement, had little ear time despite languishing in the collection since 2009, something I regret, but even on fifth listen I’m impressed with the sound the band have produced.

2009 Progressive Rock sylvan

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Jan 22

For Your Pleasure – Roxy Music [#485]

by stegzy

Roxy_Music_-_For_Your_PleasureRoxy Music’s second studio album brought to me by a hard drive dump from a former work colleague.

When I obtained this album, I was at a point in my life where my interest in Roxy Music consisted of Flesh and Blood, a live video of Bryan Ferry in concert and a selection of the band’s Best of albums. So having heard tracks from this album such as Do the Strand and In Every Dream Home a Heartache ad nauseam from my prior trove, it’s no surprise that this album gets little in the way of air time through my collection.

Shame really, some good music on it.

1973 Bryan Ferry Roxy Music

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Jan 21

Flying Teapot: Radio Gnome Invisible Part 1 – Gong [#484]

by stegzy

220px-Gong_Flying_TeapotDave Allen, Steve Hillage and friends float about in a gnome filled teapot with some pot head pixies and a witch.

Back in the nineties when I was experimenting with life, my former acquaintance, Shitbag, introduced me to this album, stating as he did with Pink Floyd’s Animals that the album was rare and not available on CD except to an elite group of music lovers. In fact, he added, the band had floated away with pot head pixies so would never be seen live or in any branch of HMV.

Not only was I able to gather myself a copy of Flying Teapot, but I was also able to gain a copy of the follow-up album, Angel’s Egg using patience and a twenty pound note from the HMV in Church Street Liverpool. I like proving people wrong.

I regret never being able to see Gong live. Flying Teapot is one of those eye opening albums that bring a whole new experience to prog and the band, together with Pink Floyd, held my hand through my musical development into the mid to late nineties. Indeed, whenever I wanted some music to enhance my mood and spiritual yearnings, I’d choose Flying Teapot first, as a result, the album features heavily in my life soundtrack of that time. Which, on reflection, is bizarre when considering the concept behind Flying Teapot draws from Russell’s Teapot idea. Sadly, due to my introduction to darker, goth music, and exploration of new progressive rock, my appreciation of later chapters in the Radio Gnome story was missed. Not helped by frequent cries of “This is a right racket can we turn it off now please”.

Not an album for haters of jazz.

1973 Gong Steve Hillage

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Jan 20

Fly From Here – Yes [#483]

by stegzy

220px-Fly_from_HereIn my eyes, Yes’ best but final album. Technically, this isn’t Yes’ final album but it is the last one I bought before Chris Squire’s death in 2015.

Following the departure of long time lead singer Jon Anderson who was undergoing throat issues and Wakeman who was busy being a grump, Squire, Howe and White looked to former band mates Buggles – Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn, to reform the line up that made Drama a hit.

Horn obviously remembered how difficult Squire’s music was to sing when you register no longer reaches the notes of your youth and opted to produce the album instead. At this point surrogate singer Benoît David was asked to join the band, David’s singing style having been recognised by Squire who had seen David’s performances with Yes tribute act Close to the Edge on Youtube.

Aurally, Fly From Here is very much in the style of Drama era Yes. In fact, the song from which the album’s title comes is one that Horn and Downes worked on that almost became a Buggles song before they joined Yes. I really like this sound of Yes. It shows how the band might have developed had 90125 not happened, a richer more illustrative sound with a strong prog taste. The final flourish and farewell, in my eyes, of a band that helped me enjoy music as a developing youth. My only regret being that I never had the free time my youth afforded me to listen to the album on a regular basis.

 

2011 Buggles Chris Squire Geoff Downes Steve Howe Trevor Horn Yes

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Jan 19

Floating Into the Night – Julee Cruise [#482]

by stegzy

220px-Jc_floatLike a capsule containing music the youth of Twin Peaks might have listened to, Cruise’s Floating Into the Night brings a hauntological sound to the listener’s ears.

I suppose if Twin Peaks wasn’t your thing, you might not appreciate the subtle nuances of Julee Cruise’s first studio release. But as anyone who was alive in the nineties was sucked into the world of David Lynch’s  epic about the murder of a middle class high school prom queen in a peaceful backwater American border town, it’s unlikely you have no conception of the eerie world portrayed in the TV series and its accompanying soundscape.

Cruise’s vocals haunt the listener like the whisper on a breeze through a forest of Douglas Fir pine trees and, nearly twenty seven years later, still send chills, shivers and flashes of terror down the listener’s spine. In my opinion, this is Cruise’s best work. Her follow up album, Voice of Love ,still dipping into the Lynch universe didn’t reach the same levels and the magic fades on subsequent later albums such as Art of Being a Girl .

 

1989 Julee Cruise

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Jan 18

Flesh & Blood – Roxy Music [#481]

by stegzy

Flesh_and_Blood_album_cover-1In an effort to destroy good music, my eldest brother made me a copy of this on a home taped cassette. If he hadn’t perhaps the music industry would still be around today.

At the time of the cassettes issue, I was in my late teens and my main interest, as for most boys, was girls. Sarah Bamber was the then girl of my dreams but my interest was spurned regularly. So, like all good teen boys, I found solace by moping about listening to music, an activity spearheaded by the music of Chris Isaak and this album.

Songs from the album such as Oh Yeah and Running Wild featured heavily in my life soundtrack of the time. I still remember trying to garner attention by listening to the album sat on the veranda at Keswick Youth Hostel during a walking holiday with the church choir.

As I grew older and I realised that a moody male attitude alone didn’t get you laid. Nor did an interest in an American guitarist (Isaak) or a wrinkly lothario and his band. My appreciation of Flesh and Blood waned and the album became just another in my vast collection. Indeed, Sarah’s interest only piqued when I became unavailable and she later ended up having a brief fling with who she thought was my best friend as a way of getting back at me
for spurning her affections. Oh how I laughed as he drew her into his own world of despair, womanising and mysogyny.

This is Roxy Music’s seventh studio album and was my introduction to Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music and originally featured on the B side of a 90 minute cassette with the A side consisting of a collection of songs by The Tubes.  Happily I now own the full album on digital media.

Which is a good thing as since home taping killed music.

1980 Bryan Ferry Roxy Music

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Jan 15

Flash Gordon OST – Queen [#480]

by stegzy

220px-Queen_Flash_GordonIt’s thirty five years old and still a fantastic film. I must have seen the film more times than I can count to such an extent I often find myself finishing people’s lines and quoting bits for ages.

So it’s no surprise that I have the soundtrack in my music collection. However, I’m not a Queen fan. Freddie Mercury et al did nothing for me musically with perhaps the exception of Love Kills in Moroder’s Metropolis and though Bohemian Rhapsody has its place in music history, Queen’s other output just does not feature in my collection. At school it was the rougher types that liked Queen, the Paul Midgleys and Nick Gosneys of the world who’s fathers subjected them to Queen’s greatest hits on every car journey in their Ford Sierras.  My dad played Glen Miller while my elder brothers force fed me prog and new romance from a very early age but never Queen.

Flash Gordon is a piece of its time. It should remain so and deserves no remakes or reimagining. Whedon and Abrams had better keep their mits off it. The soundtrack, like the film, remains firmly stuck in the eighties psyche like a can of Quattro and tub of Lyons Maid ice cream.

1980 Queen Soundtracks

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Jan 14

Flake – Sugarplum Fairies [#479]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2016-01-10 at 11.45.41Right back in the days of Windows Millennium, I was given a CD with a stack of music on it in a new exciting format; MP3. The music was from new and exciting bands, most of which were unsigned and were using the new technology of the Internet to get themselves known. They did this by using a publisher known as Peoplesound. One of the artists appearing on this compilation was Sugarplum Fairies. I immediately fell for their low-fi sound which, at the time, was new, innovative and yet to be copied by the likes of The White Stripes.

Flake is Sugarplum Fairies first album, and was released in 1999.

I love this album. It makes me feel warm, lazy and wrapped in brown corduroy while supping coffee on a lazy Sunday afternoon, pretty much what the lyrics refer to.  Lyrically, the songs on the album refer to troubled lovers, shoe gazing and wistful yearnings and Silvia Ryder’s distinctive vocals bring a layer of pining and toned down introductory elements of Amanda Palmer without the anger.

Sugarplum Fairies were hipsters before hipsters were invented and continue to show them how to do it right.

1999 Sugarplum Fairies

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Jan 13

Five Miles Out – Mike Oldfield [#478]

by stegzy

Mike_oldfield_five_miles_out_album_coverOldfield’s seventh studio album.

I often forget about this album. It’s not because it’s forgettable but in my ears it’s perhaps not as remarkable as other albums by Oldfield. Stylistically we can hear traces of Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge underscored by Oldfield’s distinctive guitar wanking, use of vocoder and weaving of sections to honour English Morris Dancing. Indeed, aurally juvenile, Five Miles Out continues to mark Oldfield’s stylistic development as well as his continuing discomfort with Virgin Records. Themes from this would later appear in Heaven’s Open and Amarock.

 

1982 Mike Oldfield

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Jan 12

Fisherman’s Blues – The Waterboys [#477]

by stegzy

Fisherman's_Blues_Waterboys_Album_CoverMike Scott and his motley bunch of musicians and their fourth studio album.

I remember having a discussion with neighbour Ian Vickery outside his house back in 1988. We discussed the music of the day in depth and we connected for the first time in nearly 10 years as we realised that on our personal music journeys, although our tastes differed, we both were at a time where our tastes crossed.

I remarked about U2, a band I knew he liked that I found distasteful due to their political leanings and how their music brought out a new tone of Irish music far removed from traditional Irish folk. He countered that other bands from Ireland showed promise and were similar in their political message and vitriol, and asked if I was aware of the band The Waterboys. I was aware of The Waterboys because of their song The Whole of the Moon from their album This is the Sea.  Later that evening Ian posted a cassette of This is the Sea through my letter box and so began my foray into the musical world of The Waterboys. The next week, armed with pocket money, I nipped out to HMV in Church Street and came back with the Waterboy’s latest album.

Far removed from the politically motivated This is The Sea, the album Fisherman’s Blues stylistically is so different that it’s difficult to see the join. Fisherman’s Blues is nearly all traditional Irish Folk in sound, the harsh “English bastards” undertones hidden amongst a heap of green grass, leafy glades and wistful fancies about long lost loves. I liked the album at the time but, as later albums revealed to me, the original sound of the Waterboys, that which Ian had hoped for me to appreciate, was soon lost. As, more than likely, the slightly religious undertones of the band’s music were lost on him.

Indeed, it was only until recently that I discovered that Fisherman’s Blues was in fact the band’s fourth album and not their second, the earlier Waterboys music much more slanted at those that do Ireland wrong through oppression and political tomfoolery and slightly less veiled in their religious undertones like their later albums.

1988 Waterboys (The)

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Jan 11

Fish Rising – Steve Hillage [#476]

by stegzy

220px-Steve_Hillage_Fish_RisingUncelebrated guitar king and one time Gong member, Steve Hillage’s first solo album following his departure from Gong.

By all other regards, this really sounds like a Gong album. It has Gong members Howlett, Moerlen, Blake and Malherbe but also features Dave “no the other one” Stewart who you might know from helping to arrange Fear of a Blank Planet or his work with Barbara “Spirogyra” Gaskin or his TV work.

This is exactly what I like about prog. Former band mates, guys you meet in the pub and pals from different groups getting together to make music. You don’t get that in modern times. You never see the likes of Gary Barlow getting together with say, H from Steps, Noel from Oasis and Mel C to do an album about a fish. For a start their agents and recording labels wouldn’t allow it but also it’d be complete bollocks.

As I said, Fish Rising by all accounts sounds like a Gong album but without the Gnomes, Pixies and Flying Teapots. A more relaxed background album than a fully fledged “concentrate or you’ll miss it” progressive concept album. It is however something you – if you’re a fan of Gong, Hillage or embarking on a life changing journey through prog – might want to listen to as an appreciation exercise to see if you can detect distinctive musical styles and flourishes. Or maybe you’re just high on something and have the old oil projection lamps going and need something to help you focus on.

 

1975 Gong Spirogyra Steve Hillage

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Jan 8

Fish Out of Water – Chris Squire [#475]

by stegzy

2015 saw the passing of one of rocks greatest bass players, Chris SquireFish_Out_of_Water_(Chris_Squire_album)_cover_art aka Fish, from acute erythoid leukemia complications. A great shame as he was a talented musician who formed and was a cornerstone of prog rock band Yes. Squire’s first solo album, released in 1975 in a period when the members of Yes were releasing solo albums, is today’s album, Fish Out of Water. 

I’d not listened to Fish Out of Water in its entirety before composing today’s entry I’m ashamed to say. I guess it didn’t sit well  with my appreciation of Yes’ development since 1986 but that’s not to say I wouldn’t have enjoyed it and appreciated it more had I had access to the album when I was younger.

Fish Out of Water is very early Yes in style and features Bill Bruford and Patrick Moraz as support musicians but it’s also possible to hear Squires own distinctive style which matured and resurfaced in later albums such as The Unknown and Conspiracy 

1975 Chris Squire

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Jan 7

Fire – Electric Six [#474]

by stegzy

Electricsix.fireCamp dance punk from Detroit’s Electric Six.

This actually grew on me. I was aware of Danger! High Voltage and Gay Bar thanks to Joel Veitch’s early flash animations on B3ta and my ex-wife’s love of things camp. But I had resisted the band and the album for several years until I accidentally gave the album a full listen in about 2010 while my MP3 player was on repeat.

At the time I was concentrating on a game of World of Warcraft so didn’t realise that the album had repeated itself about 4 times, so it wasn’t as bad as I first thought. Since then its tracks have appeared on many random shuffles without skippage and sometimes….I do wiggle my bum in a little dance.

2003 Electric Six

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Jan 6

Finis Gloriae Mundis – Rising Shadows [#473]

by stegzy

Rising ShadowsDepressing neoclassical dark wave from Sweden.

This has been in my collection since its release in 2010 and was one of the last albums I obtained during the Great Internet Free for All Download Frenzy of the last decade. Since then, I’m ashamed to say, I had never listened to it until it came to writing this article.

I wish I’d not bothered.

Sometimes in our attempts to stay youthful and in touch with our would-have-been past, we try to draw the last dregs from the flagon of our favourite music genre at a time when the flagon should have been rinsed, popped into the dishwasher and refilled with more mature stuff. This is one such example and it now languishes in the recycle bin of doom.

2010 Rising Shadows

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Jan 5

Fine Young Cannibals – Fine Young Cannibals [#472]

by stegzy

Fine_Young_Cannibals_-_Fine_Young_CannibalsRoland Gift and chums in their first album of a two album career.

If you were around in the mid eighties you are probably already over familiar with Mr Squeaky voice squeezing out Suspicious Minds and crooning about Johnny coming home from this album or some woman driving him crazy from the follow up. If you weren’t, it’s likely you have heard their songs on compilations from the time.

This is another album where I’m unsure how it ended up in my music collection. I was never a big fan of FYC, finding the shrill warblings of Mr Gift a little too strong for my aural pallet. However that didn’t stop me doing a really good impression of him on stage at an amateur dramatics performance in Sheffield during the early nineties. Indeed, although the proliferation of the second album, The Raw & The Cooked, throughout acquaintance’s music collections was high, I suspect the only reason the first album exists on in my collection is because someone foisted it on me intending me to “like” it.

1985 Fine Young Cannibals

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Jan 4

Final Straw – Snow Patrol [#471]

by stegzy

Unknown Welcome back.

As regular readers will know, my music collection is comprised of CDs and MP3s inherited over 30 years of relationships as well as those I’ve obtained nefariously and legitimately. Today’s album falls into the inherited bracket.

I’ve never been much of a follower of what some people call mainstream music. Bands like Oasis, Blur and Pulp passed me by in the nineties and likewise, bands like Coldplay and Snow Patrol feature on my life’s soundtrack purely as “music that’s on the radio too much”. Such music often becomes illustrative or indicative of the period or era of our lives. For example Duran Duran, Visage and Human League will forever be synonymous with being in primary school in the eighties for me, Deacon Blue takes me to being a teenager at secondary school and Simple Minds will always transport me to my first stint at University.

Listening to Snow Patrol’s album Final Straw I was immediately transported to the noughties at a time of my life when I was in my thirties living in Liverpool. However, I’m not, as I often say, a fan. Over saturation of airplay frequently is frequently a cause of this and I often feel cheated or left out when, years later I revisit songs and bands with a more mature outlook. Much like how I feel about Elbow and Reef.

Final Straw is Snow Patrol’s third album and was released in 2003. Award winning and, as previously described, overplayed, I inherited the rip of this album from Gay Jamie along with a whole brace of other albums.

2003 Snow Patrol

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Dec 22

Final Experiment – Ayreon [#470]

by stegzy

440px-Ayreon_The_Final_Experiment Arjen Anthony Lucassen and his rag tag collection of musicians again this time with his first album under the collective name of Ayreon.

Final Experiment sets the ground work for Ayreon’s later works such as Universal Migrator and 01011001. Far off in the future, the remnants of the human race project telepathic images to a minstrel living in the past with King Arthur and Merlin in an effort to prevent an almighty calamity.

This is it. This is the album that those who like story based concept albums such as War of the Worlds or Spartacus (both Triumvirat’s and Jeff Wayne’s versions) or later unrelated Ayreon works such as Actual Fantasy should like. Yes, you should  like it. I know I know, I take the piss out of endless lists of people who tell me I “should” like some music, but I mean it this time.

Ayreon’s mix of story telling and rock music improve with age and time and it should be remembered that this is the first Ayreon album so things aren’t quite honed to perfection but it is a strong foundation to grow the seedlings of fandom in.

1995 Ayreon

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Dec 21

Final Cut – Pink Floyd [#469]

by stegzy

FloydFC-Cover01The twelfth studio album by Pink Floyd.

It still amuses me to think about a former acquaintance of mine insisting that the only Pink Floyd album available on CD was Animals and that his copy was a rare limited edition. Yet several visits to HMV  and a brandishing of a fistful of CDs in a face later I was still to hear an apology or admission that he was an idiot.  Still, I like to also imagine that he spent some time in his later life, dropping the soap in the showers at the local penitentiary.

Final Cut often comes across as a Roger Waters solo album and, indeed, legend has it that at this point in the band’s career, the other members of the group couldn’t be arsed had fallen out and eventually Waters was to go his own way leaving Gilmour to ruin or enhance the band depending on your point of view. A concept album about the futility and effects of war on those that are sent out to do the dirty while the privileged stay at home and enjoy their riches.

I really like this album. It always sends me on a journey through bitterness via anger and culminating in a shiver down my spine. I’m also of the opinion that it should be compulsory listening for MPs before voting on whether to go to war. I dream that, come the revolution, my MP, Chris Heaton-Harris (who has me blocked on Twitter), will be forced to listen to this album whilst tied naked to a chair in Daventry Country Park on a cold wet Wednesday in February.

However, the album is divisive amongst fans of the band with four camps forming, those that see it as Waters’ final push to break the band apart and hating it, those that see it as a swan song for the band and love it, and those that don’t feel strong about it either way. I sit firmly in the fourth camp, those that really like it and don’t care. What do you think?

1983 Pink Floyd Progressive Rock

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Dec 18

Filigree & Shadow – This Mortal Coil [#468]

by stegzy

FiligreeandshadowClassic goth moonings brought to the listener by Ivo Watts-Russell’s 4AD label and their rag tag bunch of artists brought together under one banner.

Filigree is TMC’s second offering. Like other TMC offerings, the personnel making up the band are picked from a variety of 4AD artists such as Dead Can Dance (Peter Ulrich) and Cocteau Twins (Simon Raymonde) but while not as popular, well known or groundbreaking as the first, It’ll End in Tears, Filigree does hold its weight with some interesting interpretations of obscurely excellent songs. Originally released as a double album with each side an aural blend, the masterful production was lost on release in CD format and moreso in digital file.

1986 Cocteau Twins Peter Ulrich This Mortal Coil

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Dec 17

Fifth Sun – Lycia [#467]

by stegzy

Lycia_-_Fifth_SunTechnically an EP but notable as Lycia is the band that David Galas plays for when he’s not doing his solo stuff. Only this album is from a time when David was out doing his own thing and Tara and Mike were continuing Lycia without David.

Galas’ absence is audible in this release (though an extra few tracks featuring Galas are on the later re-release) and Tara’s vocals make a noticeable change from previous releases (see/hear The Burning Circle then Dust).

2010 Lycia

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Dec 16

Feast of Silence – Vas [#466]

by stegzy

440px-VAS_-_Feast_of_Silence_AlbumcoverBack in the days of the Download Free For All Fest of the early noughties, some fans of fringe bands tried to hoodwink fans of other more mainstream bands into thinking that their obscure shite was a long lost recordings of said mainstream band.

Such is the case with Vas who, during this time, someone thought it would be a wicked jape to pretend Vas was some forgotten rare recording of gothic misery meisters Dead Can Dance. Had me going for about an hour. But it’s easy to hear how similar both bands are stylistically. Like with Love is Colder Than Death, Vas hold their own in a unique Dead Can Dance meets Ordo Equituum Solis blend.

Like DCD, the band use ethereal vocals and a mix of modern and traditional instruments. Like OES, the band use pining lyrics and ethereal vocals. Like LCTD and DCD, Vas use World Music influences extensively. Indeed, Vas are one of those talented bands who, had they had the backing of a good media machine, might have made it into more people’s record collections. A true gem formed of Persian vocalist Azam Ali and American percussionist Greg Ellis. Feast of Silence is the bands last album and was released in 2004 before they gave up and did other things.

2004 Vas

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