Record Reviews from the Forest Park Post

THE OLD SCHOOL REPORT CARD V.7 PT.1

DAVID BYRNE & BRIAN ENO “EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS WILL HAPPEN TODAY” CD (Todomundo/Opal)

For the first time in 27 years, the Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and one-time Roxy Music member Brian Eno have collaborated for one of this year’s best releases.
This time out, Eno asked Byrne to add lyrics and vocals to tracks he had created and they began passing tapes back and forth until session musicians and various recording studios involved amassed the project to a complete record.

This may not be the anticipated sequel to the sample-ridden masterwork of 1981’s “My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts”, but it is a great new David Byrne solo album with interesting accompaniment and production from master studio wizard Sir Brian Eno. Eno’s method is usually “less is more” and his minimal passive beats work to great detail on tracks like “I Feel My Stuff” that reminds me of some Robert Plant techno world-beat until the avant-garde jazz piano builds to a heavy rock crescendo.

This disc may be a bit artistic compared to later Talking Heads work but it recalls the “no-wave meets the 1990’s” as far as guitars meets electronics. They refer to it as folk-electronic-gospel. Let’s plug in and go to church.

GRADE: A

THE OLD SCHOOL REPORT CARD V.7 PT.2

THE WEEK THAT WAS “S/T” CD/LP (Memphis Industries)

Field Music is an indie pop band from Sunderland, England, a town that brought the music world bands like the Futureheads and Maximo Park. Led by brothers Peter and David Brewis, Field Music went on hiatus after their debut to work on side projects. Earlier this year David debuted with School Of Language and now Peter has emerged with the more ambitious The Week That Was.

The Week That Was combine Linn drum machines and Fairlight keyboards harking back to the early 1980’s when artists like Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and Genesis ruled the airwaves. It was the era more prevalent than on the work of Yes circa-“90125” when Art of Noise met prog rock. Tracks on this record are math rock when a pop sense fighting to get through. Think a poppier David Sylvian-led Japan or Talk Talk on a well medicated day. The opener “Learn To Learn” gets things driving from the get-go. XTC harmonies with Phil Collins-type drumbeats accented by math rock guitar arpeggios. Never was a marimba put to better pop-rock use. This follows into “The Good Life”, which has a Talk Talk pop feel. A couple of somber pop cuts continue until track five, “The Airport Line” which is the current third single released. Soothing strings and staccato rhythms make this one work on a pop level similar to Big Star,

Momentum changes for the last third of the record and then closes in a phenomenal fashion with “Scratch The Surface” that might remind one of Wire’s Colin Newman solo work or the Yes/Trevor Rabin era. This record clocks in at just over thirty minutes and is one of those great debuts like The Cars or The Pretenders’ first albums from back in the day that you could play over and over again and never get tired of. Top notch.

GRADE: A+


THE OLD SCHOOL REPORT CARD V,7 PT.3

GRACE JONES “HURRICANE” CD/LP (Wall Of Sound/PIAS)

At age 60, Grace Jones had disappeared but was never really gone. On her comeback record she is catching up with some of the trends that she missed in the nineties. “Hurricane” continues her dub tendacies collaborating again with the great reggae rhythm section of Sly & Robbie, now clashing it with Massive Attack and other electro influences. Had she continued her recording career all along, this may well have been the record she should have made in 1996. With groups like Spektrum out of the U.K. stealing her vibe, now was the perfect time for her to re-emerge and regain her diva-club-electro-dub-queen throne.

There isn’t a clunker in the bunch on this disc. Collaborating with Tony Allen, Sly & Robbie, Tricky, Brian Eno, Wally Badarou and producer Ivor Guest who created all the basic tracks in her inevitable style. Wendy and Lisa co-wrote the autobiographical track “William’s Blood”, which is a tribute to Grace Jones’ mother Marjorie, which was a wise choice for first single as will “Love You To Life” no doubt become a definite club hit. Apparently Ivor Guest produced some 23 songs of which nine appear here so we may see a follow-up record in the new year. Prepare yourself for the second wave of the hurricane.

GRADE: B+