Lost Records: Chapter Two

August 11, 2008 by John Foster  Send to a Friend

It’s true. I couldn’t resist adding another column in hopes of turning you cats and kittens on to more music. This is going to focus on discs primarily from the 80s (and early 90s) that have long been hard to find or sort of fell through the cracks of the collective consciousness. They will also be true records in that you should own the whole thing and not download just a few songs. To make life easy, I will focus on spending some of your eMusic credits. The service is still spotty with new releases but an amazing array of back catalogues have come on-line and digging through ebay or gemm has now been simplified to single clicks at a fraction of the cost. Sit back and enjoy!

Spoonfed Hybrid “s/t”

Ian Masters brought his androgynous vocals and baroque sensibilities to the rush of effects that could swarm Pale Saints (sure to make an appearance in this column at some point as well.) After pushing the band into more experimental territories, he found that he could push no more from his role in the group and left, hooking up with AC Temple’s Chris Trout in a new project: Spoonfed Hybrid. The resulting album would find release on the 4AD sub-label Guernica. This made it unavailable in the States and the quick closure of that branch of the label made it difficult to acquire in general. This record actually topped my list of “must look for” in shops for years. I eventually acquired a German pressing via gemm after years of looking, yet through the magic of eMusic, you can have it instantly for around $3.50. Don’t ever say that I don’t love you.

The collaboration resulted in incorporating a wider variety of instrumentation, but more importantly gave Masters songs more space and air. The disc is notable for what isn’t being played as much for what is and brings it closer to Talk Talk or Bark Psychosis or an arty, precious version of Grizzly Bear, than the shoegaze dreampoppers of the day. Kicking off the collection of obtuse titles with “Heaven’s Knot,” the stage is set with a radiating guitar haze over which Masters gorgeous vocals dreamily drift. “Naturally Occurring Anchors” surges acoustic strums and then cuts them off and swirls them around in competing fashion, as the vocal dives next to and then around the shards. “Tiny Planes” pairs the close mic’d acoustic strum to icy and mournful keyboards and dramatic piano into a slow, slow build to a clash of guitar burn and fanciful runs on the ivories.

“Stolen Clothes” is quiet and wistful with its simple strums, light percussion and majestic vocals swells. “Lynched” is pensive with a jazzy soundtrack to the sounds of walking alone in a dark and foreign house. “1936” clicks a drumtrack behind Master’s wandering melody of odd lyrics and light piano before shifting to an orchestral burst and back again and again until ending in a Tangerine Dream electronic pulse, interlocked vocals and a string section run up. “Getting Not to Know” might be the closest to his former group’s work as it is generally a guitar tune, but also reveals Master’s love for 60’s acoustic style solos in the work of Love and like-minded others. “Somehow Some Other Life” follows form into “Pocketful of Dust” and it’s painfully slow piano line – each note seemingly crushed underneath it’s own weight – until it reveals a moody and dark ballad – sad and beautiful as the horns at the end.

“Ecnalumba”buzzes guitar chunks around electronic bagpipes as filler before closing with “Boys in Zinc” and a slow xylophone and cello bed allowing orchestral swells and Master’s distant and mournful coos. The record manages an intimacy in the way it was constructed, yet Masters remains distant and shy – almost painfully so. It is the kind of album that begs for repeated listening as you slowly unravel its mysteries; yet frustratingly never reach the center. If all of this sounds incredibly arty and pretentious (particularly the song titles) then I must reveal that it most definitely is – but in the best possible way: There is little denying that a grand vision is at work. There is also no denying that the creators won’t be letting you behind the curtain of their possible madness anytime soon.

RIYL: Grizzly Bear, early Pale Saints, His Name Is Alive, a goth version of Love, Spiritualized, Talk Talk.

If you end up loving this, the closest Masters got to a return to this magic (although everything he touches is good) was the ESP Summer project, with His Name is Alive’s Warren Defever (which is even harder to find – good luck.)

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