Its not all moping around you know.
Its not all moping around you know.
Two Dollar Guitar – The Wear and Tear of Fear, A Lover’s Discourse.
http://www.smellslikerecords.com/
Someone’s been listening to Michael Rother’s solo LPs of that I’m sure. Blue Coat and Yellow Vest could be an outtake from Mr R’s Katzenmuziek. No matter, as Katzenmuziek is indescribably beautiful, I’m happy to hear this homage anytime. In some ways the uplifting opening track is misleading as this is an LP that deals with that most painfully emotive of all subjects, the break up. When you have titles like Lying and Cheating (a beautifully expressed series of reflections set over a sentimental slide guitar and casio beat, if you must know), The Wear and Tear of Fear and The Ghost Ship, you must be pretty numb not to notice what this work sets out to express.
If you are in further doubt, check these sleeve notes out.
"Though each love is experienced as unique and though the subject rejects the notion of repeating it elsewhere later on, he sometimes discovers in himself a kind of diffusion of amorous desire; he then realises he is doomed to wonder until he dies, from love to love."
Cascade and Wild Night are long, sonorous laments in very bleak emotional sound-scapes. However, despite their length – and subject matter – they never lose your interest as there is a great deal going on instrumentally. Elsewhere the sparse, maudlin reflections of Swamp Girl and 4 o Clock confirm that this LP is the ultimate companion to a love hangover. Sometimes there are moments of wry irony; the remedial, Autobahn-style synths on Wide Load beautifully offset the bleakness of the song itself. Its not all moping around you know.
An engaging if rueful listen and please, don’t be too downhearted.
Words: Richard Foster.