Saturday, January 21, 2006

4AD announces Scott Walker album!



(Via http://www.brainwashed.com:)

The legendary Scott Walker has finished his first complete album in over ten years, due for release on 4AD of all places, in May. The Drift is the name of the album and 30 Century Man is the name of the documentary of Scott Walker, directed by Stephen Kijak, also scheduled for release in 2006.

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As every aspiring pHinnologist must know by now, I'm a huge fan of Scott Walker. This news is quite extraordinary, since he publishes new albums ever so rarely: the last one, Tilt came out already in 1995; the one before that, Climate of the Hunter in 1983. These both are more experimental Scott, so for beginners I recommend to check out the Boychild compilation which puts together the best from his classic late-1960s albums Scott 1-4 and 1970's 'Til The Band Comes In.

Description of these: imagine a young guy in a 60s style of moptop hairdo (more fitting to some teenybopper idol of the day) singing in a classic American "crooner" voice (à la Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra) and accompanied by orchestrations reminiscent of John Barry (who provived music for all the 60s James Bond movies) some gloriously melancholic songs with part-existential, part-surreal/psychedelic lyrics inspired by (or being even translation versions of) Jacques Brel, Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal, and British "kitchen sink" realism (perhaps someone like Morrissey of The Smiths might be a similar character, even though I'm not such a fanatic for Mozzer like some people seem to be...) Such people as David Bowie, Nick Cave, Julian Cope, Brett Anderson of Suede, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp and Marc Almond of Soft Cell have also been inspired by or taking their cues from Scott. Oh yes, extremely cultish stuff and probably not exactly to everyone's tastes: as said, I worship though.

  • The Drift @ Discogs.com
  • Scott Walker @ Wikipedia
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