Love-Hounds-request.UUCP@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (11/27/86)
Really-From: ll-xn!uwvax!astroatc!gtaylor (Twice the speed of silence) The Moon and the Melodies: For the masses waiting for the Cocteau Twins to abandon the sound of Victorialand, some more waiting is called for. I was interested in particular at how adept they were at bending their work to accomodate Harold Budd's piano (answer: their success varies). It turns out that much of the two units' interest in sound as sound (the inside of Budd's piano/the dense acoustic spaces of V'land) provides the common ground. Nothing to tear the breath from one's lungs, but it might provide a little wider exposure for Harold Budd. Lovely Thunder (Harold Budd): Interesting idea: put Budd together with ex-Ash Ra Tempel guy Michael Hoenig as producer (you also know him from the non-Philip Glass dronefests from Koyaanisqatsi). One track left over from the Cocteau Twins sessions, mixed by Robin Guthrie. In a sense, it harks back to the wordless vocal/piano work that marked Budd's first recordings on the Obscure Records release "The Pavillion of Dreams". You'll hear that in the Twins' record a little too. It's quite recognizeably Harold Budd, nudged a little closer to the work on "Abandoned Cities". Great Cover. Power Spot (John Hassel): This is *old* stuff (83, 84), and obviously done during the time that Eno and Lanois were just getting the dense yet open sound of their current production work down. As a result, there's some research material to be heard here. A touch more percussive and ah....accessible than some of Hassel's stuff. While the recording is crisp as can be (on ECM no less), there's nothing to really grab you like the first side of "Fourth World" SPK (the flowers of Byzantium or whatever it's called): Not much to add here, but that it is a near perfect cross between Industrial edginess and the serene and sad spaces of fake ethnography. A soundtrack for all those mistakes you've made. Marvelous. SPK is stripped down to Graham Revell now. We're saved the absolute crap of "With Love From China", and given the idea that there might be someplace to go. An alternative from the more fake types of retro-atavism (23 skidoo's stuff when they're off, some of Brown/Lew) that's out there.