Records

Rip It Up, Issue 97, 1 August 1985, Page 22

Records

Chad Taylor

Sting The Dream of the Blue Turtles A&M It is difficult to approach this record without preconceptions. For a start there's our attitude to the whole Police file. Fans of the group will want more of the same. Detractors will of course expect confirmation of their criticisms. Well, Blue Turtles is not a Police album, even though it does include a couple of numbers that recall the old format. 'Fortress Around Your Heart' has a bright, poppy hook while 'Love Is the Seventh Wave' re-employs that familiar white-reggae schtick. There's also a revamp of an early Police song. And then critics of Sting's past work will be able to remake their point about verbal pretentiousness, particularly with reference to 'Russians’ (the album title is also an example). But finally all assessments based on Police-oriented criteria are inadequate. The music is simply too varied. Besides, it distinctly lacks that identifiable Police sound.

Another expectation is that Sting has “gone jazz" Understandable when you consider his choice of stellar back-up band: Weather Report's drummer, Miles Davis' bassist and the sax and keyboards players from Wynton Marsalis' group. (A line-up, as they say, “young gifted and black ") Yet less than half the tracks are jazzoriented. and in those it's mainly a matter of pulse rather than improvisation. The exception is the short, instrumental title piece

and that seems largely a concession to allow the band to flex. Often in fact, the music works best when a tension is established between jazz expectations and the restrained structure of Sting's songwriting. 'Consider Me Gone' swings beautifully but is kept under tight, brooding control. Likewise, Moon Over Bourbon Street', an eerie love song for a vampire. (Which also includes some deft arranging by highly reputed British composer Dominic Muldowney.

Sting certainly is moving in classy company these days.) But the band’s enormous potential firepower isn't wasted. They provide a marvellous dynamic to the final two tracks on side one. 'Children's Crusade' builds to a superb instrumental climax and 'Shadows In the Rain' boogies with a vengeance. If one has any reservation about The Dream of the Blue Turtles it’s probably that the album hasn't developed beyond that extraordinary second side of Synchronicity, the last Police set. But then, I guess, that's another preconception. Peter Thomson The Pogues Red Roses For Me Stiff Ten years ago and the Pogues would've been safely shelved as Folk-Rock, that meaningless but convenient category that covered anything from the Incredible String Band to the Eagles and the Byrds. These days it isn’t so simple. For a start the English press are desperately scratching for something REAL in a soap-opera domestic scene, and the Pogues, with dirt under their fingernails and real Guinness in their veins, make a dirty, bawdy, credible music that’s long been missed. Anglo-Irish by extraction, not by choice, the Pogues released this album in Britain last year. Booted by rockabilly rhythms and laced with Celtic folk instrumentation (accordian, tin whistle), their songs spring from vocalist Shane MacGowan's alcoholic energy and from the odd trip into ethnic pasts. MacGowan’s songs veer between drinking reels, 'Streams of Whiskey' and 'Boys From County Hell’; stolen jigs. 'Battle of Brisbane' and Down In the Ground Where the Dead Men Go’; and metropolitan blues, Dark Streets of London! But his masterpiece is 'A Pair of Brown Eyes’, a drunken, yearning song about longing that rolls, laments and finally accepts "a-rovin' a-rovin’ I'll go for a pair of brown eyes." Repo Man's Alex Cox directed the video that was recently on RWP. The heart of their traditional attack lies with the reels/jigs of ‘Poor Daddy', Dingle Regatta' and Greenland Whale Fisheries'; and for Celtic soul Brendan Behan's

'The Auld Triangle' and the timeless melancholy of 'Kitty' reach those sentiments too true to be maudlin. Confronted by Red Roses For Me, purists will point to the likes of Planxty, Boys of the Lough, Alan Stivell, Horslips and even the Chieftains as better examples of the wonders of Celtic folk music. But that isn’t the point. The Pogues, like The Men They Couldn't Hang (grab their import album Night of A Thousand Candles), are now, their style is only a means of conveying their hunger in the present. The important thing is that there's life, passion and great music on this record. George Kay The Bangles All Over the Place Liberation The Bangles grew up alongside the California hardcore scene and they’ve since been variously considered as feisty casual feminist and sellable girlpop: of course they’re both and neither. Side One, with the exception of 'The Hero Takes A Fall; is the duller side. It’s crisp, pleasant but somewhat predictable guitar-vocal pop. But flip over and there’s a bag of multitextured riches. The six songs are linked by a continuum of melody and sheer tastiness. It encompasses the quick shuffle of Tell Me' and the gorgeously slow and languidly precise vocal harmonies and string backing of 'More Than Meets the Eye! 'Going Down To Liverpool' was written by the lead guitarist of Katrina and the Waves but it fits in fine. And

let’s hear it for smart love songs. There are two main sides to great pop music on one hand, the manner in which it relates to and evokes its time and on the other its absolute grace, verve and economy. The Bangles may not have a lot to do with the pop world of 1985, but they're pretty heavyweight on the other scoresheet. Russell Brown Aztec Camera Backwards and Forwards WEA "I like Roddy Frame but I still think he's stupid, all dressed up for stardom. He looks a bit of a twit,” said Man of the Month Terry Hall earlier this year. Frame has been picked for stardom and named, on more than one occasion, as the heir to Costello’s bag of tricks. Two albums of carefully-wrought craftsmanship bear out his potential and this five-track live EP gives some indication as to the care the man takes to present his wares. Backwards and Forwards’ and The Birth of the True’ from Knife and The Bugle Sounds Again' from High Land Hard Rain are reeled off pretty faithfully and benefit from the keener edge of live performance. The justification for the price of admission lies in the unknown ‘Mattress of Wire’, a Frame acoustic exorcism of some presence, and in the masterfully understated version of Van Halen’s 'Jump; this time bowing out on a two-minute guitar blitz. Tasty.

George Kay

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds The First Born Is Dead Mute “It’s the blues mate,” a progressively-minded friend of the Birthday Party’s Mutiny at the time. Indeed, in places, it was, and now Nick Cave, like a good boy with a beef in his heart should, has made a blues album ... Or, rather, an observation of the blues. Cave’s always been a chronic observer, not least of his good self. A marvellous view of America is strained out through the album’s most overtly humorous track, 'Wanted Man’, with Cave spitting out a string of those delicious American place names Syracuse, Talahassee, Baton Rouge ... until "the one place I’m not wanted is the place that I call home.” Get drunk and growl along with Nick 1 Likewise, 'Blind Lemon Jefferson' is about the idea of a bluesman than a bluesman but it’s Cave putting himself in the equation that gives this music character. But those two and the album’s other great song, tne waning prison blues ’Knockin’ On Joe; make up the second side and that's certainly the side I’ve played. Not that Side One is bad, simply overshadowed. Cave typically goes for society's biggest, baddest (and therefore "best”) totems in singing as a man who kills himself to preserve his love for a young girl he cannot bear to see grow any older in 'Little Girl Tree’ and ’Train Long-Suffering’ is a wretched broken-relationship song that doesn’t really make it, call-and-response vocals and all. Playing the leader whose dignity turns into parody when his subjects learn to imitate him in ’Black Crow King; he’s better, as he is in ‘Tupelo’, the bleak story of an accursed town, supposedly based on John Lee Hooker’s talking blues of the same name.

Aspects of all this are silly but one presumes Cave knows that.

Even if you were to reject the whole voodoo, you’d have you give Cave credit for his utterly extraordinary dexterity with word and phrase and his choice of playmates (non-guitarist Blixa Bargeld in particular). The writer-as-singer Cohenisms of From Her To Eternity had just about exhausted their possibilities by the time the needle lifted at the end, but methinks the blues still holds some more for Mr Cave. Most enjoyable. Russell Brown The Colourfield Virgins and Philistines Chrysalis Taken at face value, Terry Hall’s involvement in the fab world of pop reads like a lesson in how to avoid success. A few years ago, just when his voice and face were the Specials’ hallmarks and 'Ghost Town’ was quite nicely nestled at number one, he cut and ran with fellow vocalists Staples and Golding to form Fun Boy Three. And just when their political implosions were evolving into the more varied ana sausiyu cui in i ici oiai bent of Waiting and. America looked ripe for the kill, Hall, tired of carrying the other two, left and formed the Colourfield with keyboard player Toby Lyons and bassist Karl Shale. .

Although Lyons is 50 per cent of the writing partnership, in most senses Virgins and Philistines is a continuation of Hall’s peculiar musical hybrid. Distrustful of pop, he’s always freely admitted to stealing ideas from the likes of Andy Williams, Jack Jones and Cleo Laine, y’know, Singers. So, plagiarism, Hall’s own droll style and Lyons’ musical structures combine to produce some special moments on this debut.

The delicately sculpted trilogy of domestic mini-melodramas on Side Two, ‘Hammond Song', 'Virgins and Philistines' and 'Armchair Theatre’ is the core of an album of deft sophistication. 'Yours Sin-

cerely’ springs a surprise Herb Alpert trumpet flurry, ’Take’ is the disruption to Hall’s homely admissions on Waiting's ‘VJe're Having All the Fun’, and ’Cruel Circus’ continues the music hall burlesque style of making a serious point that paid off so well on ’The Farmyard Connection’. Virgins and Philistines isn’t a flawless album, Hall is too dry by nature and too suspicious of pop to use its sparkle to his benefit, but as an antidote for the loudness and tastelessness of the times it is near perfect. George Kay Explorers The Explorers Virgin In which the ghost of Phil Collins and The Unknown Pink Floyd Fan infiltrates the most levelheaded of musical camps and renders Mackay and Manzanera’s solo efforts rotten and listless. Shame, shame, shame; I’d get into their self-indulgence any day (Resolving Contradictions, Diamond Head, Primitive Guitars) as would most others, so why dress up mature musicianship in the dickhead guise of Tears For Fears

et aI? The cosmetic moves are made all the more painful by the persistence of good things on the album; the riff on ’Lorelei’, for instance, or the drumming and guitar on Ship Of Fools', complete things in themselves. But, true to good business sense, all are weighed down with the dead albatross of James Wraith, heartily hurling vocals that would embarrass Nik Kershaw (witness the titles; 'Soul Fantasy’, ’Robert Louis Stevenson’, ’Venus De Milo) in a manner too close to Ferry to really justify his existence at all. There is one very real hope for the persistent, and that is that they release 12" singles with B-sides and the vocals mixed out, which I personally will be rushing to buy. Surely the whole point of getting older is to allow yourself to become even more self-indulgent, rather than paying half-hearted lip service to pointless commercial straitjackets? Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drop what a crying bloody shame. Mop up your tears with Cupid and Psyche and the new Bryan Ferry; triumphant pop and selfindulgence respectively.