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$19.99 LPx2
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SCOTT WALKER
The Drift
(4AD)
With a new album slated for release later this year from one of music's most famously confounding and reclusive artists, 4AD has reissued a double LP pressing of Scott Walker's now classic The Drift. Here's what we wrote back in 2006 upon its release:
The arc of Scott Walker's career has followed the reverse path
that I consider typical as an artist continues to grow and create
through the years, at first crafting lovely, accessible pop music
and gradually moving farther and farther afield of the mainstream.
Walker first came to prominence in the early-'60s with several
massive radio hits with his group the Walker Brothers, including
the timeless "No Regrets;" but by the end of the decade
he had tired of the pre-packaged youth market the group was mining
and turned to a solo career that has spanned nearly 40 years.
His subsequent solo records, beginning with four thrilling self-titled
albums in quick succession in the late-'60s (Scott, Scott
2, Scott 3 and Scott 4), were surely anomalies
in the hippie era, with lush orchestrations backing Walker's dramatic
croon more redolent of past generations of pop stars like Sinatra
or Jacques Brel, from whom Walker clearly took a cue on his intense
and stark lyric imagery of the seamy underbelly of society, sung
albeit in an embraceable, theatric baritone.
These early solo efforts were huge hits in England, although
they only reached cult status here in the States, and throughout
the '70s and '80s he continued to record, with often wonderful,
but mixed results, until eventually slipping off the radar completely.
After more than 10 years of silence, Walker returned with a bang
(or a low rumble perhaps) with the bold and nearly revolutionary
1995 album Tilt. Walker crooned desperate tales over largely
ambient electronic soundscapes that bubbled ominously, perfectly
complimenting his songwriting and creating a singular sound that
was received with open arms by the avant-garde music community,
while still clearly relating to his earlier, less "challenging"
work.
Well, you thought that was a difficult listen? Eleven years later,
Scott Walker has again dropped an atom bomb on us with The
Drift, a stunning new epic that pushes him further out on
the ledge of both musical adventure and lyrical despair, with
a brilliant, theatrical, intense and comically pretentious album
that is sure to be one of the most brutal and rewarding listens
we will have this year. The production is reminiscent of a month
spent in the Alaskan tundra, cold wind and shades of white nearly
blinding, alternating between wide empty spaces and pounding claustrophobia.
Swirls of electronics, vibrating strings, pounding percussion…the
music surges and then disappears with a seeming randomness that
only slowly reveals its logic. Add the chilling sound effects,
weird whispers, gurgling screams, a prolonged and disturbing percussive
segment that sounds frighteningly like fists on flesh, and you
have a chilling background to Walker's disarmingly warm, eloquent
and musical singing.
And sing he does, as THAT VOICE is always the center of any Walker
production. As his accompaniment becomes colder and colder, the
warmth and depth of Walker's singing is even more arresting, and
it is hard to ignore the lyrical content in these harsh climes.
Walker is inspired by such earthly horrors as Mussolini's brutal
public execution, and Clara Petacci's decision to die alongside
him. Or a desperate swallow stuck in the attic smashing against
the wall in vain hopes of freedom. Or Elvis Presley, deep in the
throes of drug addiction and despair, speaking to his stillborn
twin Jesse. And yet, miraculously, Walker fills these harsh tales
with humanity and life. This record is not for everyone, and surely
not for every time, but it is a remarkable and pure artistic statement
that is full of beauty and pain on a level few of us would ever
allow ourselves to explore, and coming as it does from such a
storied and accomplished songwriter, with little to prove, it
is all the more fascinating. It is possible to draw a line connecting
all Walker's work, from "No Regrets" to "Clara",
and the constancies may in some ways outweigh the innovations,
but as this true artist continues to challenge himself, and the
listener, with his sonic and lyrical explorations, despite the
pain that The Drift wallows in it is hard not to be inspired
by the joy of the creative process. [JM]
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