|
|
17 songs / 63 minutes
|
The first thing that struck my eye was the wonderful cover artwork: it is the same painter
than the one who made the cover for the last Infamis-CD, and I just love that style that
reminds of Munch with lots of yellow, but also blue and red colours. Looks just cool! I have
never heard the name R. Stevie Moore before, but the song titles already were very promising.
My first impression upon hearing the CD was: LO-FI!!! Compared to Mr Moore, even early Guided
By Voices sound as overproduced as Def Leppard. But Moore has a method, it's not just bad sound
just for the sake of it. In fact Moore is a big tape recorder, and has already released about 250
tapes in his lifetime... even Zappa seems like a lazy guy compared to this. Moore doesn't make
often CDs, so also this one contains material recorded from 1975 to 1998. The fun fact is that
it still sounds homogenous, because there has been no change with lo-fi over the years. Moore does
most stuff by himself, but also has a lot of people helping him out. Above all Krystyna
Olsiewicz's voice is remarkable... and who the hell sang the original of 'Rose Garden'? Oh yeah,
there's a hatful of cover tunes: David Byrne, Sparks and even more obscure stuff. Back to the music: Moore is a real sound magician, and sometimes sounds like a cross between Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers, both ex-Soft Machine. There's a Canterbury touch to some of the songs, but not with the Caravanesque elegance (playing golf and drinking cups of tea), rather with the rough charm of the unemployed, having problems with his bladder, scratching his back while shouting at all the opium idiots. Did I tell you that I love this CD? Well, now I do: I love this CD. Why? Because songs like 'Misplacement', 'Everyone, But Everyone', 'Where We Are Right Now', 'Bladder', 'Idiot Opium', etc. just kick ass, have great melody lines, and are just different from the mainstream styles. Check out R. Stevie Moore's homepage if you have the time. Maximum rating for this cute little item! |
