The Residents turned to ambient-concrete and ethnic in Eskimo, whose tracks were accompanied by text explanations, thus patronizing what should have been a visceral experience.
Purely musically, the ambient ceremonial chant "The Walrus Hunt" artificially recreated the feel of the arctic wasteland, whereas the starlit ritual "Birth" got some of the Residential weirdo treatment. Then in "Arctic Hysteria", the internal ethnic-concrete collage hinted at Jon Hassell's work to come. Similarly, "The Angry Angakok" reminded of Pink Floyd's concrete chaos in "Several Species" from Ummagumma. "A Spirit Steals A Child" was a deformed ethno-theatrical performance, while surprisingly, in "The Festival Of Death" the ritual metamorphosed to a delicate concerto, a warm moment in the frozen land.
Basically this album represents the point in The Residents' career when their music moved from being a stream of lava of abstract junk-culture to a conceptual art-rock.
EDIT: Dead link because of complaints to Rapidshare.
Yello maintained their place amidst the most creative bands of the 80's with Stella. "Desire" was one of their fluid, atmospheric, soundtrack-based, exotic tinged, electronic doom jazz themes. "Vicious Games" occupied the same territory, as if a haunted disco theme for a surreal soap-opera. In "Oh Yeah", the ever present deformed disco-theme was vivisected with an abundance of distorted vocal effects.
The epitome of elegance, "Desert Inn" was a mixture of ethnic ritual chanting, disco beats, jam-rock flourishes, and an epic ambient electronica awe. "Stalakdrama" was a symphonic experiment in tension, it's Wagnerian overture magnified to a point of feverish splendour. In "Koladi-ola", another ingenious piece of electro-pop, prevailed a digital funk-rock whose elements came from all sorts of disparate sources.
This wild eclecticism continued in "Domingo", a mix of heavy-metal, soundtrack themes, chanting, classical, banging beats etc. "Sometimes" returned to their elegant and gentle side, yet still managed to sound like a rolle-roaster ride. Similarly the desolate but grand synthscape of "Ciel Ouvert" evoked images of spiritual delirium. The amazing creativity encapsulated in these synth-rock tracks would make indie favourites like New Order or Depeche Mode blush at their own mediocrity. Get it here.
A classic record from the otherwise anemic Greek new-wave scene. Metro Decay's gloom-rock was electronic flavoured and lyrical ("Μαύρος Κύκνος"), occasionally acquiring an austere and epic tone ("Ανάμεσα σε 2 Κρεσέντα"). They were also capable of crafting ambitious compositions, such as "Το Ταξίδι", that vibrated amidst sinister synthesizer drone-oscillations, a robotic beat, ethereal piano brushstrokes and the melodic outburst of the chorus.
"Εισαγωγή στην Κινηση" was clearly influenced by Joy Division's "Isolation", but the ace up their sleeve was the traditional Greek-music garnishes amidst the frenetic electronic march. The same fundamentals were also applied in "Παιχνίδια στην Επιφάνεια", where the solo splashes veered almost into jazz territory. They were also competent at constructing fluid environments, like in the moving-blindly in the darkness threat of "Απειλή".
The ethereal gloom-rock returned in "Το Πάγωμα του Πάθους", where the cosmic sheen in their music simulated a free-fall in an ecstatic whirlpool. With the robotic beat replaced by a ritualistic trance and abstract symphonic ambience, "Υπέρβαση" reached for a sorrow far deeper - like Fra Lippo Lippi did in In Silence. It was a trend repeated in the galanty-show of "Λίμπιντο", that moved menacingly beneath the surface like a tectonic rift.
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Having embraced a more pop orientated direction, the Sound gave it their best shot with Shock Of Daylight, starting with the triumphant technicolor splash of "Golden Soldiers", all the while their gloom-rock assumed a more elegant and humane garb in "Longest Days", which was washed off in a melancholic stream in the paean "Counting The Days", and accompanied by minimal strumming and keyboards in "Winter" (the highlight). They also half embraced new-romanticism in the melodic funk-rock "A New Way Of Life" and the nocturnal "Dreams Then Plans". Emotion and melodies had replaced dark-punk edge.
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The Essence were always perceived as Cure copycats, and rightly so. But then again they always wrote great songs, and at their best (A Monument Of Trust) they could tackle glimmering drama with ease. So it was with Nothing Lasts Forever, making it's case with bruised and elegiac pop ("Separation"), spiraling mood-swings ("How You Make Me Hate"), autumnal paeans ("September"), shimmering dramas ("Out Of Grace"), sparkling sorrowful sighs ("Everything"), triumphant pop that rose like a phoenix out of it's ashes ("Never Let Go"), wind-torn rain-soaked landscapes ("Thirty Second Song"), fragile farewells ("All Is Empty" and so on.
Get it here.
Slowdive diluted their sound somewhat in Souvlaki but, what they lacked in density, they made up in emotional gravitational pull.
"Alison" was a shoegaze paean that flickered like a small flame in the wind, before incandescing itself in the chorus. Then "Machine Gun" was a tender hymn that floated like a feather in the atmosphere. In contrast, "40 Days" traveled in space in supersonic speeds and was wrapped in motion blur. "Sing", co-written by Brian Eno, employed a twirl of electronics to emulate a state of weightlessness, before picking up speed in an endless fall in space.
"Souvlaki Space Station" continued the trend, now burning itself in this infinite fall in space. "When The Sun Hits" mourned for the fall and loss, eventually losing itself in the process. "Altogether" had lost it's senses, taking comfort in the temporary refuge of an internal cocoon. Even this embankment wasn't to last. "Melon Yellow" was falling too fast, too soon, into this internal abyss. "Dagger" certainly didn't offer any solace. By now the flickering flame of "Alison" was all but gone and all that was left was the memory of the flame, which in turn was fading into nothingness.
A masterpiece. Get it here.
My Bloody Valentine was the one band to push the shoegaze sound to it's limits. The other was Slowdive. Loveless was their grand statement.
"Only Shallow" was a dream-pop dissevered with monstrous fuzz acid-rock outbursts. In "Loomer", their dream-pop became an amorphous toxic fuzz cloud. Then, after the loop intermezzo "Touched", "To Here Knows When" rose triumphantly like purging steam towards the sky; essentially this was the previous amorphous cloud having gotten rid of the fuzz and vocals, and having transubstantiated higher in the stratosphere to pure ethereal ecstatic sound.
When compared to these bold sonic experiments, "When You Sleep" was classic shoegaze (i.e. fuzz ridden dream-pop). Again, from this relatively standard moment, "I Only Said" exploded with giant whirlwinds of pure soaring, melodic, spiritual elation; if new-age music relaxed the spirit, then My Bloody Valentine's music washed off the spirit with white light from heaven, uniting it with the great one in a dizzying nirvana.
And again, this was followed by a more normal shoegaze track, "Come In Alone", which also reminded of 60's psychedelia. "Sometimes" was also fairly standard, though aided by a superb melody and a more pensive tone. The ectoplasmic nature of their music returned with "Blown A Wish", which was akin to a gospel floating in the airwaves in search of a heaven. And finally, in "What You Want" they merged their two guises: one, the superb shoegaze pop-psychedelia and, two, the impalpable ecstatic harmonic structure.
A triumph.
NOTE: Sorry folks, link removed by request.
