Records

Rip It Up, Issue 96, 1 July 1985, Page 26

Records

The Gun Club The Las Vegas Story Chrysalis The last Gun Club album, recorded slightly over a year ago hey, better late than never. Jeffrey Lee Pierce has raised his observation of America out of the swamps and onto the blackjack tables, although the relevance of Las Vegas is more implicit than explicit in the course of the album. Pierce has since released a solo album, Wildweed, and if this is anything to go by it should be cracking good. For a start, he's singing like a bastard better than he ever has. He even tackles an old George Gershwin number,

My Man's Gone Now' with aplomb. He gets still more exploratory with a spacey one-man-band rendition of what was presumably original-, ly a gospel tune, 'The Creator Was A Master Plan'. The sound here is thicker than that of previous Gun Club records, so the songs'don’t immediately jump out : and grab you by the throat in fact 'My Dreams' doesn't jump out at all. But Congo Powers is back on guitar after a sojourn with the Cramps and he and Pierce take turns at needling their way into your brainr§33£gj The fuller sound is effective on ‘The Stranger In our Town' and ’Bad America’ (which is laced through with Television), but it’s at its peak with the first and last. Pierce swaggers into the album with ’Walkin’ With the Beast’ and the band storms out on ’Give Up the Sun! Wow!

So there you have it the best Gun Club record since Fire Of Love. Of course, some people would simply say it's the best Gun Club record ... Russell Brown

Renee Geyer Sing To Me WE A ' Renee Geyer's last album was a definitive live soul revue that featured a mixture of her own repertoire and a number of standards. Sing To Me, then, presents her first set of . new ’ material since ; 1981’s So Lucky. As one would expect after four years, there have been a number of changes. Not so much in her magnificent voice thank goodness but in certain shifts concerning its presentation. Where So Lucky had a raw, loose raunch to its performances, here the playing is sharp, polished and often very carefully arranged. Thankfully this never degenerates into the merely slick. On the contrary, both instrumentation and a clear production sound enhance Geyer's passionate singing. ’ It is therefore disappointing that many of the songs don't measure up to their first-class treatment.

Nine numbers were contributed by various Australasian writers (including Kiwi expatriates Tim Finn and Marc and Todd Hunter). Of these, only four are particularly strong: 'Without Love', 'Woman In Love’, the broodingly funky 'Fever' and Sing To Me! a ballad. The first three are all co-written by Geyer, while the title track is by ex-Cold Chiseller Don Walker. (Tim Finn’s song is bright and poppy, but lacks the depth needed for Geyer’s resonant style.) Geyer is, however, well able to adapt her style when required. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album’s only cover version. Where she once chose to reinterpret Chuck Berry or Eddy Grant, here the choice is an old 50s torch number associated with the likes of Julie London and Frank Sinatra. And Geyer's version is certainly no disgrace to such exalted company.

Perhaps, given the relative scarcity of good new soul songs, Geyer might pay further attention to this type of material. After all, Alison Moyet's doing okay with it and Geyer’s easily in her class. It’s possible then that Sing To Me will come to be seen as a transitional album for a singer who is yet to achieve the worldwide status she deserves. Peter Thomson Bobby Womack The Poet II Motown Bobby Womack's been involved in soul music since almost before there was such a thing. First prominent as Sam Cooke’s guitarist and as a member of the Valentinos (he later married Cooke’s widow, Barbara), Womack went on to work as a session player on important 60s black releases like Sly and the Family

Stone's There's A Riot Going On and to provide songs for Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and others. With the 70s Womack embarked on a solo career that produced several albums, all interesting, but all I’ve heard are less than complete successes. Womack's latest album, The Poet 11, arrives on a tide of overseas enthusiasm it was cited in many publications (particularly British ones) as the best album of 1984. Strong as aspects of this album are, I would have to add it to the list of Womack's output which remains, at least in part, deniable. Womack specialises in a unique brand of mellow funk, a kind of country soul gone urban. But there’s something about this country-sophisto policy that seems to fall between camps it's not downhome enough to compete with the easy integrity of an Al Green or uptown enough to cut it with, say, Luther Vandross. For all that, The Poet II is Womack's strongest bunch of songs yet and what the tracks may lack in individual distinction, the album gains in seamless flow. Distinctive instrumental touches lift many tracks away from being just classy easy listening. It adds up to Womack's most focussed album so far but no knockout. Alastair Dougal Dire Straits Brothers In Arms Vertigo The key to Dire Straits’ music is the continuing and questing dialogue between the guitar and voice of guiding light Mark Knopfler. He acknowledges as favourite guitarists those whose playing is as much a vocalisation as their own voice, of which it is a logical extension. He names such as Al-

bert King, Blind Willie Johnson, J.J. Cale. He could add himself to the list.

Some deride Knopfler’s subtle shadings and textures as too careful, too safe. They miss the point. His is a fibnely sinewed music, elastic, resilient, lasting. Dire Straits is now a one-guitar group, but Knopfler is under no strain. Dervinging as it does from blues and folk sources, it is strong enough and self-contained enough to stand alone. The band reinforces and enhances Knopfler’s message with a result akin to aural magic. Little wonder Dire Straits are far and away the leaders of the popular end of the compact disc market. Favourite songs? Just about whatever is playing. Highly recommended. Ken Williams Yello Stella Elektra Dieter Meier, old surrealist, old campaigner and old European, finds himself trapped in some nightclub, the anonymous beat of eurodisco via Ultravox goes round and round in his head ... "Boris!” he cries to sidekick Boris Blank. "Zat is ze soundscape I vant for ze next album!" "Ja,” says Boris. Grrg! Grrg! Mix it up Boris!! Stella: a couple of weird ditties, a couple of tales, a couple of incidental mood pieces and an ode to Domingo de Santa Clava ... been there, done that, and all not enhanced by production that’s flat. Boom, ba-boom, vocoder, synth, Knopfler guitar solo (!??) all harmless, but all incongruous. Wrong setting Dieter it's too smooth, unquirky and boring. I just gotta say no to this excess.

Paul McKessar