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Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 16 November 2019 CE
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Zariadris
Zariadris
286 posts

Edited Nov 17, 2019, 12:58
Re: Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 16 November 2019 CE
Nov 17, 2019, 11:15
MUGSTAR w/Damo Suzuki - Start from Zero
MUGSTAR - Centralia

I'm carrying on with my Mugstar trip. These past two weeks I've been spinning these constantly. Start from Zero is a beautifully recorded live gig in Liverpool with Damo and the lads creating tight and dark post-punk psych, like a cross between Heaven Up Here and Monster Movie. Standout cuts are the ghostly Subway Sound and the 22 minute motorik closer, Zero Coda, which brings to mind Neu! and Bauhaus jamming Bela Lugosi's Dead. Outstanding.

Centralia is two sidelong cuts of first-rate instrumental cosmic excursion that channels the vibes of Achim Reichel's Echo and Popul Vuh circa Letze Tage, Heart of Glass, as well as the plaintive tones on side B of Bruder des Schattens...I could listen to this forever.

BIG COUNTRY - Steeltown

I come back to this at least once a year. One of the most outstanding - and unsung - albums of the 80s, IMO. What a unique sound, at turns heavy and lilting, dark and luminous - Mark Brzezicki's clattering drums and Tony Butler's swooning, booming bass lines no less essential than the e-bow driven bagpipe-like twin guitar clash of Stuart Adamson and Bruce Watson, all beautifully produced with Lillywhite at the controls. The song craft and atmospheric textures of Steeltown are timeless to these ears. Lyrically, the album is brilliant as well, at once political and personal, angry and dreamy: the incisive Flame of the West has lost none of its urgency in this age of populist demagoguery. It's as much about Trump as Reagan. Come Back To Me makes me cry every time - a devastating anti-war song from the POV of a young widow that segueways from the scorching WWI inspired Where The Rose is Sown. And the haunting, indeed apocalyptic title track about the dispossession of the working class harkens back to a decade when people still gave a shit about them - a time before the technocratic new left turned its back and left them to right wing populists; a time when rock musicians, like our own Archdrude, used their voices to protest and demand. The Bolshevik-style constructivist cover art says it all. I even remember the day I bought it, a spotty 15 year old at Fnac, along with Iron Maiden's Powerslave! I don't much listen to Powerslave anymore, but Steeltown is a desert island disc for sure: a reminder of who we all were - what we feared, dreamed and stood for - before the wall came down.
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Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 16 November 2019 CE (1001realapes)		 Replies:
Re: Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 16 November 2019 CE (jb lamptoast-morsley)
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