Goya Dress---Rooms--She was telling you the greatest secret in the World.....

There's not much I can't do.....

I'm sitting here listening to Astrid Williamson singing, so if I was in a bad mood, you know that I'm not right now. Astrid was in Goya Dress, and Rooms was their sole full length, released in 1996 on Nude Records.

The album was produced by the esteemed John Cale, and I must say that is simply stunning, a superb melding of art and melodicism. Astrid Williamson has one of my favorite voices in pop music, and over the years I've picked up all her solo albums except her most recent Pulse. But you know, being born with a great voice is a great gift, but its what you do with it and how hard you work sometimes. Sure, you might get into the finals on American Idol, or one of those other crappy reality shows, but in addition to having great pipes, she also is a compelling songwriter and musician. Hailing from the Shetland Islands in Scotland, she has carved out a critically acclaimed solo career but far less commercial success than warranted. She is the "diva" that no one is telling you about.

Rooms was never released in the U.S. as far as I know. A real head-scratcher, because it is a very compelling intelligent edgy record.

Astrid Williamson: Vocal, Guitars, and Piano
Terry de Castro: Bass and Backing Vox
Simon Pearson: Drums

Trust me, this is a secret classic album of the 1990's that no one has ever picked up on. I did a post about Astrid's first solo album I am the Boy for You, and I would also recommend that very highly.
She has one of the voices that make your hair stand up on the back of your neck. Oh, yeah, and she happens to be beautiful on the outside too.

The album begins with the strong Sweet Dreams for You--quiet verses leading to powerful choruses with standout vocals, a harbinger for the rest of the album. The second song is Crush, which sounds like the first single, or maybe the number intended to go on the soundtrack, but there is a light endearing quality about it.




The title track, Rooms, is one of the highlights, with nice piano work by Ms Williamson, and a string section. Seems like the perfect vehicle for Cale to work with. One of my favorites. The following song Greatest Secret, is a strong guitar driven vehicle with strongly emotive lyrics.




Maybe the biggest number of all here is Glorious, and it is huge and lives up fully to its title. For me it is the band at the heights of their powers. Which make the album deceptive because this song is near the middle of the album; the last 4 songs are strong, but not quite up to Glorious. You have the sublime piano and strings of Katie Stood on the Benches, the harder rocking pop of Any John, the jazzy finale The Maritime Waltz, and the epic six minute melancholy opus Picture This.





This album would be a great candidate for a reissue with their singles appended(like the above song from the Bedroom Cinema ep), but I'm not holding my breath about it. It is true that they did a lot of good things on Eps before Rooms arrived. Astrid continues to make fine albums and once in a while she tours a bit, though I have yet to see her live. Check out this album and I think you will agree that its unfortunate that this band didn't make more music together.

And of course I owe a debt to America's finest music magazine, The Big Takeover. I would have never known of Astrid were it not for Jack Rapids support for her music. Issue #72 of the Big T will be shipping soon! It only comes outs twice a year. With mainstream magazine failure becoming a running comedy joke (and a tragedy for journalism and the public), music magazines need support from the public more than ever. If you are interested in great modern music, you need to subscribe to this magazine!

I'm not afraid for being that lonely.....The Serenes--Back to Wonder

I forget where I heard about The Serenes, but I know that what I heard about them gave me the impetus to seek out the music of this Dutch pop band from the 1990's. They were from Friesland and put out 2 albums which are pretty great sounding, though maybe not the most original sounding. There are some that consider them to be the best pop band ever from the Netherlands.

Think REM with better enunciation, more polished and pop oriented. A bit on the downbeat side, which I suppose you could guess by the band's name!
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Janglepop. With some 60's pop stylings thrown in. Probably as good as a lot of bands from this era who did this sort of thing.

The album I am enjoying right now is Back to Wonder, their second and final album, released by RCA, produced by famed American producer Lou Giordano, who has produced a diverse group of artists over the years, from Boston's Moving Targets, Husker Du, Mission of Burma, Goo Goo Dolls, Belly, and the Lemonheads. The sound quality is pretty excellent on this album, with a few intimate sounding acoustic numbers and even a string saturated ballad (Here).

At least in theory, if this album had been released in the States, it could have seen some success. As it stood I had some difficulty locating their Cd's, but struck gold via Discogs.

All in all the songs are impeccable on Back to Wonder. There is not a bad track on this album. The pop songs are understated, and this probably would not be to the taste of some. If this album was a movie, it would categorized as a "date movie". Which is not a bad thing necessarily.

Because there is a lot to love about this album. Starting with the first song---Spirit (Let me Walk), which is a pretty song with chiming guitar. Maybe a little understated to begin an album, but a fine
song, nonetheless.


 

The Serenes are: Theo De Jong; guitar and vocals, Pyter Kuipers; bass and backing vocals, and Joan Hooghiemstra on drums. Personally I prefer the energy of the 2nd song, Feel Me. This is a clip of the band performing the song acoustically on 2 Meter Sessies.





Another great song on Back to Wonder is Wider Green, which has an almost Byrdsy twang to it, which then converts into soaring guitar pop. The song segues into Love under Will, an intimate acoustic number. Here is another beautiful ballad but with strings--it sounds like it could found a spot on one of Colin Blunstone's (Zombies)solo albums of the early 70's. Another standout is Every Sunday---which is right here.




I think you get the idea of what this band's sound is. Their first album, Barefoot and Pregnant is also a very nice album that I would recommend. The band split up in 1994. I know that Theo De Jong later had a band called Simmer which was released Mothertongue on the Dutch label Excelsior, which was also home to Dutch pop stars Johan, who I did a post on a while back. As far as I know, I have no further information about these guys. I'm sure somebody knows something somewhere. Hope you enjoy this post.

The Other Guys of NYC Noise Rock---Live Skull--Cloud One

You know what? You've probably heard a similar argument to the one I'm about to make. It's the QWERTY argument. I learned from reading an essay by Stephen Jay Gould about the evolution of the typing keyboard. Essentially, he gives a basic lesson through demonstration how evolution sometimes work. He throws a cold bucket on the notion that evolution is a progressive process, that life forms are always improving toward better design forms. Well, in a social context, there were other versions of the typewriter keyboard layout, and many of them were more sensible than QWERTY, but that keyboard became the standard setup for keyboards. Just like Windows being the chief operating system of computers, despite other companies putting out better products and failing.

In the context of music, the argument has been made that U2 had many competitors, who were their equal or better. Ultimately, they became at least for a time the biggest band on earth, going toe to toe with the Rolling Stones, Springsteens, Elton Johns, and McCartneys, the rock giants. For many, the bands that were their at least critical rivals, such as Teardrop Explodes, Echo and The Bunnymen, The Sound, and others certainly had some amount of success, but they never became megastars like Bono and friends. A lot of arguments can be made as to business acumen vs art, but maybe at least some of it had to do with dumb luck.

In the US in the early 80's there was a noise band movement that evolved out of Glenn Branca's guitar experiments and the No Wave movement which included bands like DNA, Mars, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, and The Contortions. That was one of the many scenes of the day, where a variety of musical genres bled and mingled with each other in a variety of new and interesting forms. Critic Robert Christgau had a pejorative term for the music in the early , which in retrospect did noone any good, and made him appear to be a bit cranky for somebody I consider to be a very open-minded musical polyglot. C'mon, these days we all can agree that menacing dissonant loud music is a good thing. Ultimately he gained an appreciation for the movement, as did the general public, as the estranged noisemeisters Sonic Youth cast indelible stamp on modern music, both as popularizers and innovators. Additionally their music was hugely influential to other groups, and their legacy continues today.

But what about the others guys? There were a number of bands doing similar work to these groups who are probably invisible these days to most musical fans. Bands like Unsane, UT, Rat at Rat R. The Swans are probably a lot better known because they have continued to release material, recently putting out a new record. And of course the mighty Live Skull. I really loved these guys, and I started listening to them early, buying their first ep from Midnight Records on 23rd st. I never saw them live though, unfortunately. I thought that they were just as good as SY, and I find it baffling that their early stuff has never been reissued other than the fact that their is a lot of great music on the Homestead label that is still in mothballs. I also find it strange that the music that they made prior to Thalia Zadek joining the band seems to be disparaged a bit in some circles. Because I think that they had a great sound before and the Zadek fronted version of Live Skull was also great!

I couple years ago there was some stirrings at Acute records about Live Skull reissues, but to date, no dice. They put out a nice Ike Yard Cd at some point. It's possible the recession had a hand in things not happening, but I don't really know. They are a band that definitely deserves more love than they have gotten. I'm talking about Bringing Home the Bait, Cloud One, Snuffer, and the live album Don't Get Any on You. Essential listening for noise fans. Hopefully something will be done about it someday, but until then, here's a couple of tracks that illustrate perfectly how monstrously great these guys were, even before Ms. Zedek (who incidentally has a new one out herself, entitled Via).
Listen to some of this and I think you will agree that they were one of the great innovative American bands of this era.

From Bringing Home the Bait!





Cloud One:






Cloud One again:




From the 1st ep:



05/22/2013: Update----Live Skull reissues are coming!!! Already available in Mp3 format!!!

I just found out that Desire Records is reissuing the eponymous first ep in expanded form, and Bringing Home the Bait.

Very good news for noise fans. The label is accepting pre-orders and according to their site, they should start shipping product sometime in June.


New Update: Live Skull reissues will be released on September 17. Desire Records also plans on releasing the entire Live Skull catalog... so give them some support, please...