RECORDS

Rip It Up, Issue 38, 1 September 1980, Page 10

RECORDS

XTC BLACK SEA VIRGIN Last year I named Drums And Wires as one of the albums of the year not because it was rock’n'roll's most adventurous step, though it did have more than its share of risk taking, but more because of the balance it struck between Moulding’s orthodox tunefulness and Partridge's fidgety inventivenesss. Black Sea, a metaphor for life’s darker moments and future, is the fourth and best of XTC’s albums to date. It doesn't contain the Partridge/Moulding balance of Drums And Wires, since the quota falls nine to two respectively. But that isn't a criticism as Partridge has often managed to combine elements of his rhythmic/dub idiosyncracies with white pop music, producing songs that pack basic two-the-fore bass/drum impact (Chambers and Moulding take a bow), tantalising tunes and some of Partridge’s best lyrics. A simulated 78 rpm opening, then "Respectable Street” and the combined edge of guitarist Dave Gregory and Partridge himself are immediately feet in the rail against outward respectability, “decency jigsaw". "Living Through Another Cuba" takes the missile crisis of 1961 as a warning that these things happen in 20 year cycles. Who needs to wait until 1984? "Rocket From A Bottle" is a glorious optimistic love song, but this leads into the morbid deliberations of "Language In Our Lungs”. Both of Moulding's songs are on Side One. The single "Generals And Majors" and another commercial morsel, the reggae-ish "Love At First Sight". Side Two, all Partridge, follows the same cyclical pattern of pessimism-hope-pessimism to similar effect. "Towers Of London” painstakingly melodic and "Paper And Iron", a rhythmically weighty dig at working for money, are the downer songs. ' "Burning With Optimism’s Flames” and the exquisite three tiered structure of "Sgt, Rock (Is Going To Help Me)" are flashes of optimism but they make way as th'e “dance goes full circle" for the dubheavy, steamrolling, yet hypnotic, climax of the album, "Travels in Nihilon". Climb into the song.

There's no youth culture Only masks they let you rent

Black Sea is XTC’s Setting Sons; an album that is the end product of three increasingly bold and mature steps. This is XTC's zenith and don’t let anybody tell'you different. George Kay

852 s WILD PLANET WARNER BROS English writers weren’t too sure about the 852 s when the Georgia band first toured there. One of NME's weightiest saw them first and mentioned Beefheart (lyrically). The- next one NME sent along decided they were more Walt Disney (everythingly). But everyone seemed to agree on one thing the 852 s were a real neat dance band. The New Zealand concerts confirmed that, but those concerts also suggested the band were going to need some pretty strong songs to keep their ball rolling through the 1980 s. Cos once the effect of the visuals wilted, this essentially primitive band didn’t really have a whole lot to fall back on. Perhaps album three will find them out, but as at album two, that ball is still rolling confidently forward. Without changing the formula very markedly, at all, the 852 s have still put together a strong second album. Familiarity leads me to instantly liking "Give Me Back My Man”, "Private Idaho”, "Quiche Lorraine” and the longtime concert favourite “Devil In My Car”, and the record’s opener "Party Out Of Bounds" is a winner as well.

The 852 s probably aren't going to frighten any of the guys who write columns for Guitar Player magazine or International Musician, but they’ve honed their primitivism pretty effectively. Keith Strickland anchors a rock-steady rhythm section (cynics may wish to know he has a rhythm unit coming through his headphones on stage) (or at least he did at the Dunedin concert) and guitarist Ric Wilson, whose right hand is a lot more important than his left, drives home the rhythm and gets a great guitar sound as well. Sorta dwang-dwangy. He plays a (4-string) Mosrite, and of his most famous American Mosrite predecessors, he resembles the Ventures a good deal more than

Johnny Ramone. The top bits of a Bs2s’ song can be ultimately irritating, and the band haven’t totally got away from that on Wild Planet. But the hooks are still there, the best relentlessly fine. One presumes the inner sleeve was done by one of Kate’s two pet goats. Roy Colbert

JAH WOBBLE THE LEGEND LIVES ON ... JAH WOBBLE IN “BETRAYAL” VIRGIN

Jah Wobble, armchair bassist, is one-quarter of PIL, and like new drummer Martin Atkins, he has decided to dabble in solo albums. It’s not the third PIL effort, as Wobble himself has said that he wanted to put out a "sunshine record", comparatively speaking, and this shows on his affable if mechanical treatment of Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill” and the bustling original "Today Is the First Day of the Rest of My Life”. But all is not sunshine. Assisted by producer/guitarist Mark Lusardi and PIL drummer Martin Atkins, Wobble has picked up on synthesisers (and saxophones) to convey his own dub peculiarities. Because of his bass preferences and personal reggae overtones there is a dub slant to the music particularly on "Beat the Drum" and "Pineapple". PIL pops up in the form of a stark synthesiser instrumental, "Not Another” but the album’s best moments belong with "Betrayal", his fourth single, and it’s an active, biting piece of reggae.

Wobble’s solo when placed beside the PIL output is certainly more optimistic in tone and content and infinitely more accessible: this adds to its individuality and occasional excellence. Keep the legend alive.

George Kay

Pipe PANORAMA ELEKTRA EMI in this country once released a Tangerine Dream album with that group on one side and Faust on the other. At the rate Cars and Devo are currently progressing, WEA are going to have to be damn careful by album five not to get the masters of these two bands mixed up. Or maybe album six but the two are growing in towards each other faster than .'anyone would have envisioned back there in 1978. ~. Panorama is another very good Cars album. You'd have to have a brother in the band to say it was their finest so far, but within the stylistic restrictions self-imposed on albums one and two, Ric Ocasek has done a reputable job in quality sustenance. Cars’ debut updated bubblegum with insinuatory. little synthesiser riffs * as wrapping. It was a record with quite a few nifty tunes. On this third album we find the wrapping is beginning to take over, the fascination with sounds stronger and the nifty tune content just a little lower:j»SQ^fl^BMßH "Down Boys” suggests Ocasek has been checking out Iggy Pop, but like "Gimme Some Slack" and "Up and Down", it stands as refreshing guitar raunch in amongst the synthesisers and David Robinson's utterly unyielding drums. One feels Joey Ramone would let only these three through (Joey, you see, thinks synthesisers have nought to do with rock’n'roll). “Touch and Go" and ‘.‘Don’t Say No” on the first side both attack you successfully with archetypal Cars mini-hypnotism this band can really do a lot with a little but the one that ' really interests me is "You Wear Those Eyes’,': A haunting melody rises out of a backdrop'not unlike Ocasek’S New York favourite Suicide, and then it's into a , really : memorable 'chorus. Hidden away in the middle of. Side Two, this could either be a;furtive experiment or a pointer for album four. Whichever, it works. Cars pass the third album test with a B plus. Roy Colbert ALBERTA HUNTER AMTRAK BLUES CBS That a woman singer of some 85 years should be recording at all is extraordinary. That she should make one of this■ year’s most ;exciting albums approaches the miraculous.

Alberta Hunter made her first recordings in 1921 and had a long career, on records and on the stage, before abandoning show business to become a nurse in the 19505. Apart from an isolated recording session in the ’6os she has remained distant from performing until very recently. Her return to recording is to be welcomed.

Her one-time producer Chris Albertson believes she is singing better than ever. Incredible, but probably true. Bluesologist Paul Oliver notes that the young Alberta Hunter

“had the thin, melodic but rather featureless voice characteristic of many lesser singers who came within the ‘Classic blues’.” Today Alberta Hunter’s voice is rich, insinuating, knowing, sly and funny. Few singers of any age could get away with a song as suggestive as “My Handy Man Ain’t Handy No More”. Hunter offers a lesson in being obscene-and-not-heard (by those too innocent). Although she came from the so-called Classic blues period of the 1920 s which produced Bessie Smith (and whom Hunter preceded on record), Alberta Hunter is more than a singer of blues songs. In fact, she is only a moderate blues singer. Her greatest strength lies in her freewheeling reinterpretation of songs of the American near-past. Listen to the joyful life she wrings out of such chestnuts as “Darktown Strutters' Ball” and “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Jazz of a high order. Of course, the album would not be the resounding success it is without the superb instrumental support of, among others, pianist Gerald Cook, guitarist Billy Butler and Vic Dickenson on trombone. The album is produced by John Hammond, who has been around long enough to have also produced Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday (as well as Dylan and Springsteen). The best summation of the album might be a comment of Alberta Hunter’s “This old jalopy’s got a lot of mileage on her yet.” It’s great. Ken Williams

DARYL HALL SACRED SONGS RCA Occasionally there are chilling reminders that record companies do in fact rule. Sacred Songs was done in 1977 as an integral part of Robert Fripp's advance on 1981, but RCA thwarted Fripp and Daryl Hall both by freezing it in their vaults until now. Obviously someone important at RCA felt the album wasn’t the best thing for the career of Hall & Oates, and yet Sacred Songs sounds no more risky and stylistically experimental than the second side of Hall & Oates’ last outing. It's a record in fact that Hall and Oates' fans should like a lot, as it features Hall singing lyrics of real substance above melodies often as appealing as anything the man has come up with since Abandoned Luncheonette. “Why Was It So Easy” is especially nice. Fripp, who presumably relishes working with real singers like Hall and the Roches after what he had to put up with during Crimson’s halcyon period (Larks Tongue Starless), is more an over-riding presence on Sacred Songs than an all-over-everywhere collaborator. He pops up noticeably in the middle of

“Something In 4/4 Time”, elongates the schizophrenic “Babs And Babs” with a slice of pertronicking, "pushes “NYCNY” hard with some suitably frantic guitar, and eases the listener attractively into Side Two on “The Farther Away I Am”. But overall there isn’t an enormous amount here for Fripperfans, though it won’t do those people any harm at all to check out this thoroughly worthwhile album. Roy Colbert

PURPLE HEARTS BEAT THAT! STUNN With things the way they are in Britain, I suppose the Mod revival was inevitable. Punk died the death, the cost of living went sky high and unemployment is rampant, so the hedonistic outlook of the Mods, spurred on by Quadrophenia, was the release for jaded youth.

With it came a new crop of backward-looking bands, drawing their inspiration from old records and magazines, and the memories of older siblings. Names like Secret Affair, the Chords, the Merton Parkas and Purple Hearts. Named after a favourite Mod pep pill, the Hearts are four young Londoners, the oldest being 19. They started out in 1978 as a “teenage pop group”, having previously been a punk band called the Sockets. They knew only three chords then, and though they’ve definitely advanced on that, they're still hardly the stuff legends are made of.

They borrow heavily from early Who and Kinks, especially in the guitar of Robert Stebbing and vocals of Robert Manton. Both are also responsible for much of the material. It has all the vigour of youth, but precious little originality. Manton can't seem to shake off his punk beginnings, often sounding like an immature Joe Strummer, and sounds faintly ridiculous attempting Wilson Pickett’s “If You Need Me”. I’ll stick with the ska men, who have more humour and panache. Duncan Campbell

CRUSADERS RHAPSODY AND BLUES MCA Rhapsody and Blues is structuredi in isimilar fashion to last "year's Street Life one extended piece . with a guest vocalist and five instrumentals. Format hasn't yet become formula, and Rhapsody and Blues merits more than passing attention?jp|o^o|g|p^[ For the song “Soul Shadows" the Crusaders employ Withers, who once promised much. Not since "Ain’t No ; Sunshine” has Withers sounded so good. The bitter-sweet mood of the eight-minute “Soul. Shadows” gives way to Wilton Felder’s turkey strut, “Honky. Tonk Struttin' ", I don’t know if : I ' prefer Felder. playing bass or blowing sax. On either instrument he has an individual, infinitely sad-inf happy tone To lavish praise on Felder is not to diminish' the efforts of Joe Sample and Stix Hooper who do sterling work, as always. The title track, by Sample, is an epic (nearly nine minutes) mood piece, ranging from gently simmering - funk riffing to synthesised string sections which suggest ambitions toward “serious” artistry. To his credit, Sample plays an electric piano solo of some power. His acoustic piano work on "Last Call” is worth noting, too. Some may mourn the absence of Wayne jHenderson and | Larry Carlton, but (on record, at least) I feel the diminished Crusaders are the better group. Ken Williams

MENTAL 4S ANYTHING ESPRESSO BONGO REGULAR Doesn’t it annoy you the way the British Music press adopt such a condescending attitude towards Australasian bands? Even Mental As Anything, whose first album received rave reviews, are regularly referred to as a bunch of Bruces. Still, for an English reviewer to understand the Mentals must be as big a problem as that faced by Americans trying to come to terms with the Jam.

Espresso Bongo, the band’s second album has most of its subject matter provided by that great Australian institution, suburbia (even the Members were reportedly amazed at our suburbs, and referred to Australia as one never-ending suburb). The hooks are just as subtle, but growing songwriting expertise ("Come Around”, "The Girl”) and excellent production (Regular co-owner Cameron Allen) mean that the sound is smoother, and the band no longer wear their influences like badges. Fortunately, they've retained their sense of humour. "Cannibal” must be one of the strangest love songs ever: If I were a cannibal You'd be the first to go To me, it seems that there is some sort of rennaisance in Australian music, with a kind of verve that’s been missing since the mid-sixties. Espresso Bongo is representative of it. Simon Grigg 8.8. KING NOW APPEARING AT OLE MISS MCA 8.8. King cut what is widely regarded as the best live blues album ever, the 1964 Live at the Regal. It is one of those rare "classics” which more than equals its legend. Musically, it's top notch; the blues guitar master delivers the goods to an impassioned audience, and the extraordinary reaction of the audience is as much a part of the show as King himself. The passing years have made 8.8. King’s name known to a new white audience. He has recorded with rock musicians and with funky jazzmen. He remains one of the world’s best (some would say the best) blues guitarists. His new double live album presents all the faces of 8.8. King, for while Riley B. sings and plays with great emotion and commendable economy, he can also be self-indulgently talkative on stage. He is much given to lengthy monologues, mainly about troublesome women or his guitar, Lucille (and who doesn’t know that story?). While they are flavoured with flashes of wit and, more importantly, flashes of that breath-taking guitar, a lot of the time they are just a drag. A lot of Side One is taken up with monologue and, to be fair, some great guitar but if that’s not your thing scrub around it and move on to Side Two where the real homecooking starts. The album mixes the new (three tracks which appeared on the Crusaders’ collaboration, Midnight Believer), the old (“Three O'Clock in the Morning”, King’s first record, 1950) and the timeless ("The Thrill is Gone” always one of King’s best songs, this 11-minute version is a stunning tour-de-force with 8.8. battling licks at a steamrolling wall of a rhythm section). Inevitably, not everything is perfect. “Never Make a Move Too Soon”, for example, gets off to a lumpy start. But in overall terms, the reservations are few. This is 8.8. King in top form, and that is something to experience. (A sour note: beware of dodgy pressings. Mine was decidedly so.) Ken Williams

THE FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS WHAT’S THE WORD TAKOMA The Thunderbirds’ follow-up to Girls Go Wild. consolidates their position in the forefront of today’s (white) blues players. The British'have the Blues Band and 1 a revitalised I Eric Clapton. In America, there are the Thunderbirds, George Thorogood and John Hammond, who remains under-appreciated. The Thunderbirds have the most "authentic” sound, echoing as it does the 1950 s bar blues of Chicago and Texas, .their home ground. t 2jKSOaSSBS®ffIE More evident.than on the first album is the debt to Little -Walter, both in the amplified harp and vocal phrasing of Kim Wilson and the sparse, but driving, small-group arrangements. Speaking of small groups, the Thunderbirds do ? a great job of "Runnin’ Shoes", which is from the repertoire of the Houston-based,one-man band, Juke!Boy]Bonnef?JH|otpHtp4PH Kim Wilson has been hailed by Muddy Waters as the best white blues singer he has heard, a sentiment which may be based equally, on Wilson’s undoubted abilities and the fact that his band effectively mirrors a time when Waters himself was at his peak. I continue' to marvel at the way the Thunderbirds sound as if they missed the '6os and 70s entirely. That’s by the by. They play with'vigour and vitality. ' Definitely a group to watch. Ken Williams MARIANNE FAITH FULL BROKEN ENGLISH ISLAND Marianne Faithfull is a changed woman, no longer the naive, vulnerable-looking girl , who took her image to its ultimate end, playing Ophelia to Nicol Williamson's Hamlet. The face ; that stares from the back of this album cover is bruised and tired. The voice that once sweetly trilled “This Little Bird” and “Come And Stay With Me" has been eroded by booze and smack, and too many Mick Jaggers. It's now harsh and strained. The voice of a victim. After a chequered career in movies and theatre, Faithfull returned to music three years ago, with a rather undistinguished album called I Faithless. The band she. subsequently took on the road plays on Broken English, and has helped create its finest moments. The title track was inspired by a book about Germany’s notorious urban guerillas, the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Over a loping bassline and Barry Reynolds’ shimmering guitar, Faithfull sings: '-What are you fighting for?. It's not my security. What are you dying for? It's not my reality “Guilt” is her heroin nightmares revisited, It’s a flesh-creeper that gives Uncle Lou a run for his money: I feel guilt, though I know I done no wrong, I feel guilt. I feel blood, though I feel it in my veins,

It's not enough. I want more Shel Silverstein’s poignant "Ballad Of Lucy Jordon” could have been written for Faithfull, and her version of Lennon's "Working Class Hero" leaves the Waipa MP's rather academic interpretation for dead. There’s a blank track at the end, where the sexually grotesque "Why D'Ya Do It” has been omitted from the New Zealand pressing. Broken English is scarred and battered and a little erratic. Not one for the easily depressed, but when it works, it cuts to Ihe bone. Duncan Campbell

PINK R YBgSBBBBBSBm OHM DO ANIMALS BELIEVE IN GOD? VIRGIN Liverpool, the city - responsible for the beat boom of the early sixties; is currently producing a second wave of talent. This time, however, it is pop psychedelia.. Bands like Echo and the Bunnymen, Nightmares in' Wax, the Teardrop Explodes, and the first band with a local release, Pink -Military are all leading the new Mersey invasionlH£p^QPpßPQpflV4 Do Animals Believe In God clearly shows the two faces of Pink Military. Side One reveals inviting pop melodies, and Side Two warped noise-making, topped withSiouxsie-stylevocals. The opening cut, "Degenerated Ef Man”, makes ; way for two of , the best tracks, "I Cry", and "Did You See Her", showing off some haunting keyboards and lyrical twists, with vocalist Jayne trying out : her best Nico voice. Side One finishes with the dubious "After Hiroshima”. At this point, Jeckyll become Hyde, as Side Two lurches into the ominous "Living In A Jungle”. Most of the rest, like "Heaven/HeH" is just too ; heavy, until "Do Animals Believe In God?" winds up the album with a spacey keyboard line straight out of the late sixties. ■ Although Side Two is sometimes stark and foreboding, it is not without its charms and provides the’ perfect foil for the eighties pop of the first side. Mark Phillips.

THE MONOCHROME SET STRANGE BOUTIQUE DINDISC The Set served their apprenticeship of three or so singles on the independent Rough Trade label and talk of Velvet Underground influences raised a few hopes for their debut album. Strange Boutique has a tenuous link with the stylisations of John Cale and the Velvets but its true heart probably owes more to the unsettling simplicity of Syd Barrett (try "Goodbye Joe”) and their own combination of eccentricity and occasional flippancy which coins an album that comes across fresh and free of contrivance. "The Monochrome Set (I Presume)” highlights the band’s best qualities: beginning with a simple drum pattern guitarist Lester Square picks out the rhythm and develops the melody for the entrance of Bid, vocalist, who has the laconic Art School nuances down pat. Crickets chirp in the background. "The Lighter Side of Dating”, "Love Goes Down the Drain" and "lei Les Enfants” add further proof of the Set's ability to mould straightforward notions with their own mildly disturbing ideas to produce black and white psychedelia circa 1980. Whatever their sources of inspiration the Monochrome Set are infectious, unpretentious and definitely danceable. George Kay RICKY NELSON SINGLES ALBUM UNITED ARTISTS * In the list of rock heroes Ricky Nelson holds the middle ground, down a little from Berry, Presley and Lewis, ahead of Bill Haley, and rubbing shoulders with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. Nelson was a TV star who was inspired to become a rock and roll singer by Elvis. Nelson’s voice was light, but tuneful, and what he had going for him were some excellent rockabilly backing musicians, most notably guitarist James Burton, who had been working with Johnny Burnette. Johnny Burnette and his brother Dorsey wrote Nelson’s hardest rocker, "Believe What You Say”, which is one of the 20 tracks on Singles Album.

Although the move to more tracks per album shouldn’t be discouraged a detached observer would have to admit that in the case of Nelson's teenage idol era, from 1957 to 1961, there really aren’t 20 top flight songs available. So there’s dross among the gold on this record, which is the reason it will probably appeal more to the hard core rock and roll freak than to a person with only a casual interest in the genre. Phil Gifford BEA TLES RARITIES CAPITOL An album for Beatle collectors, and within that, American Beatle collectors. Last year's Rarities appendage to the boxed set (Parlophone) pales visibly, audibly and historically beside this one (Capitol). Yer real top shelf collector might well scorn a collection of highly sought-after alternate takes and rarely-seen versions having already bought them all at SBO apiece from Dutch auction lists, but he will unfortunately have to add this one as well, coz Capitol have scurrilously created new collectors items altogether on "I Am The Walrus” and "Penny Lane” by editing two rare versions into one. The real information about this album is to be found in the exacting and quite excellent sleeve notes. The differences, aesthetic and audible, between a guitar riff being played four times or six are, after all, hardly shattering. But what of the 12-year-old in his first record shop with his first record voucher still warm from the birthday unwrapping? Wondering if this- band the Beatles he heard referred to before a McCartney clip on Ready To Roll is worth checking out? What about him? Well, he will be delighted. "Help”, “And I Love Her", "I’m Only Sleeping”, “Across The Universe", "Penny Lane” and “I Am The Walrus" on the SAME album? Phew? No matter if he thinks the two second Sgt Pepper inner groove at the end is a bit daft. I dunno what John thinks of this in upstate New York with his Rutles video and regular royalty cheques, but I think he’d probably agree Rarities will get enough people through the night to justify its existence. Roy Colbert