albums

Rip It Up, Issue 205, 1 September 1994, Page 28

albums

NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE Sleeps With Angels (Reprise)

Young’s consistency over the 30 years that he’s been in the front line of rock’n’roll has been astounding. Just when it looked like he’d lost the plot in the early 80s with his dubious android and rockabilly phase he picked up the tempo later in a surge that he’s sustained to become probably his most productive period ever. Now, two years after the plain country delights of of Harvest Moon he’s decided the best way of maintaining momentum is to regroup his ol’ faithful Crazy Horse and get back into the highly strong crackle of the band format as a vehicle for tentative personal and political optimism. And make no mistake: Young uses his music to reflect the political as well as the private environment — it was no coincidence that the apocalyptic Arc / Weld came out just after the Gulf War. Whatever, Sleeps With Angels is about hope and that’s immediately evident on this great album of faith on the nursery rhyme opener ‘My Heart’ and it’s there pretty well intact on the honky tonk piano hymnal close of a ‘A Dream That Can Wait’. In between times he fires up Crazy Horse for the thirteen minute electricallycharged uplift of ‘Change Your Mind’ and the static has scarcely settled before it’s into ‘Blue Eden’ which is a wracked blues consolation for tragic death in the beautiful ballad ‘Driveby’. Even his metaphors for the evolution of a misguided and de-railed USA ‘Western Hero’ and ‘Trans Art’ offer something positive for Clinton if he’s listening. And he should be — for Sleeps With Angels is another brilliant album from a genius who continues to defy the logic that age is meant to lead to degeneracy and irrelevance in rock’n’roll. GEORGE KAY

MC 900 FT JESUS One Step Ahead Of The Spider (American)

There once was a time some years back when Mr 900 FT Jesus was touted as being the great hope for industrial rap. Fortunately he seemed to realize how bad that concept was

and thus left it to the English, concentrating instead on using funk musicians to back up his ‘raps’. He has now shifted labels to American, ditched DJ Zero and assembled a band that actually sound pretty damn good. As a sort of left field funk album One Step Ahead Of The Spider pretty much makes the grade, although the one problem I have here is that there’s a lot of creative borrowing going on. This isn’t always a bad thing, and it’s certainly commonplace enough from rap through to rock, but on this particular album it’s a little hard to get away from. As I mentioned, there’s a band happening here and they really aquit themselves well — tight but with a good feel for what they’re playing; they sound like they really like this stuff rather than just being studio hacks. What they are playing is real smooth, sinewy funk and it’s the real thing. So real in fact, that for the most part it’s hard not to try and figure out where it came from. ‘Stare and Stand’ is flat out lifted from Curtis Mayfield, and there's plenty of other moments where you can’t help but think of Curtis Live. There’s also a hell of a lot of Miles Davis circa Bitches Brew cropping up, like the opening track ‘New Moon’, and 11 minute workout very much in the vein of fusion Miles. There’s certainly nothing wrong with taking Bitches Brew as an inspiration (except perhaps that ‘On the Corner’ and ‘Dark Magus’ are far more tweaked and funky) but you don’t want to get too carried away by it. He does veer at times, like with ‘lf Only I Had A Brain’ which is just a downright clever and catchy rap song. Mr 900 ft Jesus does add his raps to all this funk, and they are becoming more like monolouges than raps, which is pretty cool. He’s a self-con-fessed fan of noir fiction master Jim Thompson, and that dry, bleak style adapts very well to what the music is doing, although again you can’t help but notice the lyrics to ‘New Year’s Eve’ seem a little close in style and concept to John Kennedy O’Toole’s Confederacy Of Dunces. Of course this all seems far more analytical and anal than it should be, and in a time when the Stone Temple Pilots can be hugely succesful with a pastiche of top alterno-rock hits it’s probably good that someone is at least working with

some interesting sounds. KIRK GEE I ROBERT FORSTER I Had A New York Girlfriend (Beggars Banquet) For his third solo album ex-Go Between Robert Foster has done a ‘Pin Ups’ and recorded a covers album of (what I presume to be) twelve fave songs. And in keeping with the confessional tone of the album’s title, I’ll fess up early to not having heard any of the original versions. The song writers are familiar enough, however — Dylan, Neil Diamond, Guy Clark, Grant Hart, Keith Richards and Rick Nelson to name a few. Not being able to compare Forster’s interpretations with the originals offers one distinct advantage — I can forgo the walking rock encyclopedia routine (better left to older rock hacks) and concentrate on this album instead. Without fail each of I Had A New York Girlfriend's tracks sound wonderfully fresh — as if they were written to be played by Forster and his band. The songs are delivered in a style that will be familiar to fans of the Go Betweens. Forster’s vocals quiver and hang in the air in their usual self-effacing and beguiling manner — his vocal phrasings often ending in a trademark upward lilt, suggesting a question as much as an answer. It’s subtle stuff, but then this is an album imbued with a rare warmth and subtlety. The liner notes tell the story of an album which “was all fun” to record and that vibe comes through strongly over a wealth of highlights. I’m not sure if / Had A New York Girlfriend is a defiant proclaimation or an embarrassed admission, but either way this album will have you starting a trans-continental love affair of your own. MARTIN BELL I PRINCE Come (Warners) The craziest horn dog in the world is back. This 10-song album was recorded before his royal madness withdrew completely from the waters of reason — hence he agrees to be called by his given named. Despite the perfection of ‘The Most Beautiful Girl In The World’, his current state of mind raises questions as to the confusion that could surround his future output. Why? Because Come is his most focussed and masterful release since 1987’s Sign O' The Times. Like Janet on janet and Marvin on Let’s Get it On, Prince wants to concentrate mostly on sex, course that’s nothing new for him but his approach is almost overly intensified. The title track is an 11 minute spunk ‘n’ sweat filled epic that pounds by on a sharp drum beat and funky bass line. This sensory overload doesn’t let up through the following two tracks, ‘Space’ and ‘Pheromone’, it’s only on ‘Loose!’ that he decide to take a breather. Not to mention a total change in direction. ‘Papa’ is a spacey spoken word tale of child abuse and ‘Race’ is an old school Prince spelling out the dangers of racial separatism. He’s back on the seduction trip for the extremely bad-ass ‘Dark’ and the sultry tones of ‘Letitgo’, then he literally opens up sugar walls while closing the album with the none-too-

subtle ‘Orgasm.’ The understatement that sums it up is that ‘it’s weird.’ You wouldn’t want to play it on a first date, but then again it’s perfect for ‘dancing’ in the dark. JOHN RUSSELL 11-800-NEW FUNK Various Artists (NPG/Liberation) If 1-800-NEW FUNK was a real number you’d put your phone on constant redial. This 11track compilation from Prince’s record company NPG boasts the creme of his harem, both male and female, and proves yet again the man is an untouchable genius. It begins with a slab of dirty funk called ‘MPLS’ by Minneapolis, moves on to George Clinton’s ‘Hollywood’ from Hey Man . . .Smell My Finger, then hits hard with the best track of the album, the pop/funk duet between Prince and Marvin Gaye’s daughter Nona called ‘Love Sign.’ Three of the most memorable tunes are thrown together mid-way through — the New Power Generation show up with the seductive ‘2Gether’, Margie Cox stretches her voice to the limit on the catchy ‘Standing At The Altar’ and long-time Prince collaborator, the legendary Mavis Staples, lets it be known she’s still got it on ‘You Will be Moved.’ And Nona Gaye appears again on the final track, a cover of the Womack & Womack classic ‘A Woman’s Got To Have It.’ The majority of compilation albums are risky purchases — sure you get a degree of excellence but you’re also burdened with the mediocre. Not from Prince though, he sure can pick ‘em and they give 100%. JOHN RUSSELL I SOLID GOLD HELL Swingin’ Hot Murder (Flying Nun) You know the story for this one. Nothing expected. If you love them live then this will answer your prayers of having SGH live in your house. If they were never your kettle of tea nothing’s changed. Solid Gold Hell is half of SPUD, the drummer fron JPSE and the bassist from Squaw. The sound is a guy in shades, a wide collar shirt and a cheap suit sitting in a 1950 s American lounge bar drinking absolutely anything alcoholic and half watching a crap band. No, that’s wrong, it’s blues based swamp rock with a pained singer. Or maybe they’re Ministry with a swing. The songs congregate together in great disorderly style and Glen Campbell even manages to sing in a couple of different styles. In the grunge-like ‘Daisy Legs’ he changes from his normal howl to a croon and gets dangerously close to Nick Cave territory in the final track ‘The Inevitable Hopelessness Of Being’. Now, I should say it’s an album to murder people by or to die to or some such other melodramatic rubbish. But let’s be honest it’s an album to play when wallowing in melancholy or sulking in your bedroom. Or if you’re the kind of person that gets invited to parties in dark rooms with endless beer and a MoPed-sized stereo this one will slip in unnoticed.

DARREN HAWKES