Scott Walker - Bish Bosch (4AD)
This time in my record review I am doing Scott Walker's new record that is called Bish Bosch. I have been a fan of Scott Walker since 1965 when my brother first played me Love Her by the Walker Brothers which is the band that Scott Walker was singing in then. Other songs that I like by The Walker Brothers are No Regrets, The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More and Make it Easy on Yourself - I have a compilation record with lots of songs on but I have never listened to his modern stuff; I thought he'd stopped making music ages ago but he hadn't he just started making different music on his own without the other Walker Brothers. Here is a video for No Regrets so you can hear what he used to sound like. This record Bish Bosch though is very different to the records he made with the Walker Brothers records and I guess this is because he got a bit older and wanted to do different things which I think is a good thing because anyone would get bored of doing the same type of thing all the time and want to do different things. The main differences are that he doesn't really sing soft anymore and the music is a lot different too and not really pop songs like he used to sing and I don't even know what I would call this type of music because it's not really like other music i've heard before, it's not really rock and it's not really pop and it's not really classical or anything else though maybe it sounds a bit like the sort of music you hear in a play in the theatre but it would have to be a very strange play to have music like this in it.
The first song on the first record (there are two records because it is a double) is called "See You Don't Bump His Head" and it starts off with very fast drumming a bit like a machine in a factory and over the top then Scott starts singing about "plucking feathers from a swansong"and some other stuff that I couldn't really make out. After a while of this guitars start but not for long and mostly it's just the hammering drum and Scott singing and I thought this was quite interesting but a bit mournful and scary - I liked it though and it made me very interested to hear the rest of the record.
Corps De Blah is the next song and this one starts off with just Scott singing on his own - I think Scott has a very nice voice even if he doesn't sing soft anymore. After a bit of singing on his own other noises and instruments start to come like violins and dogs barking and banging and then there is a very funny bit with farting on it, I have never heard farting in a song before and I thought it was very funny. After the farting the music gets a bit more chaotic and it sounds to me like the sky is falling in but then it gets quieter again with soft guitar and more dogs barking and then the guitars get louder and there are noises like it is pouring with rain and ships coming in to port. I think it is very interesting how many different sounds there are in this music and how it changes all the time. The end of the song I thought was especially interesting because it ends with a sound which sounded to me like swords being sharpened. I liked this song too.
The next song is called Phrasing and it starts with Scott singing "pain is not allowed" over and over again with not much going on in the background. I thought it was a bit strange that he was singing about pain because with his new voice he does sound a little bit like he is in pain. This song I thought was a bit more normal than the other songs and sounded to me a bit more like a normal rock song with normal drums and guitars - it is still a bit strange though. At the end of the song he sings "here's to a lousy life" and it made me think maybe he isn't that happy which i think would be a shame because I think life is ok really and that it is a shame to be unhappy and I hope Scott isn't really unhappy and is just pretending. I think it's ok to have unhappy music though because it's good to have all sorts of music.
SDSS14+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter) is next which is a long song that takes up up the whole of the side of the record. At the beginning of this one there is lots of quiet and then every so often Scott sings funny stuff like in a voice that sounds like he has just lost his girlfriend or his friend - there are bits in this song where he sounds like he's gone a bit mad. The music is a bit mad sounding too and sometimes it sounds like a swarm of bees and sometimes like party music and sometimes like a phone ringing and sometimes like sad sounding classical music and sometimes like a crowd of people. When we were doing this song we looked up what a flagpole sitter was and it is someone who sits on top of a flagpole for a long time which I think is an alright thing to do but it might get a bit boring after a while, I wouldn't mind a go though but I'd probably fall off.
The next song is Epizootics! and there is a video you can see for this one, the video is very good and I liked it all very much especially the couple dancing and the Hawaiian lady with the funny teeth and the maggots on the rose. Here is the video:
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| Shipwreck Kelly, A Flagpole Sitter. |
The next song is Epizootics! and there is a video you can see for this one, the video is very good and I liked it all very much especially the couple dancing and the Hawaiian lady with the funny teeth and the maggots on the rose. Here is the video:
I liked this song a lot though like all the other songs it sounds a bit sad and I think it might make you cry if you listened to it too much but I think that's okay and that it's alright to cry because after a cry you always feel a bit better than you did before. At the end of the song it doesn't sound sad though because it ends on a nice bit of ukelele which I thought was a nice way to end the song.
The next song is called Dimples and this one sounds quite eerie like Scott is walking through a bad snowstorm while singing - it is a nice song though because it has a voice like an echo in it that I liked a lot and it's not really as noisy as the other songs so it was nice to have a change from all the noisier stuff.
After Dimples is a song called Tar and this one starts of with a steam whistle and sounds like knives being sharpened. It seems to be a religious song because Scott is singing about God - I'm a very religious man and go to church every sunday morning because I think it's important, I like the people there because they are nice and friendly and I like singing the songs. I thought that it was quite a strange song because you don't get many songs where people are singing over knives being sharpened so I liked this song a lot.
Pilgrim is next and this starts off with rattling drums and singing that is a bit like a red indian's singing, this is a short song so there is not much more to say about it though other than that.
The last song on the whole record is called The Day the "Conducator" Died (An Xmas Song) and it a song that sounds a bit more normal than the rest of the record because it has normal instruments in it like guitars and bells, the bells are on it I suppose because it is a christmas song and that's a good thing because it's near christmas now and it's good to have music for christmas because then you can play it at parties but i'm not sure this would be a good christmas party song and it would probably be best to listen to it if you were on your own for christmas.
Overall I would say that I thought this was a very good record and I thought it was very nice to hear what Scott Walker is up to these days because I have liked him for so long. I would give this record 10 out of 10 but if it was out of twenty I would give it 20 out of 20 because it is that good.
The next song is called Dimples and this one sounds quite eerie like Scott is walking through a bad snowstorm while singing - it is a nice song though because it has a voice like an echo in it that I liked a lot and it's not really as noisy as the other songs so it was nice to have a change from all the noisier stuff.
After Dimples is a song called Tar and this one starts of with a steam whistle and sounds like knives being sharpened. It seems to be a religious song because Scott is singing about God - I'm a very religious man and go to church every sunday morning because I think it's important, I like the people there because they are nice and friendly and I like singing the songs. I thought that it was quite a strange song because you don't get many songs where people are singing over knives being sharpened so I liked this song a lot.
Pilgrim is next and this starts off with rattling drums and singing that is a bit like a red indian's singing, this is a short song so there is not much more to say about it though other than that.
The last song on the whole record is called The Day the "Conducator" Died (An Xmas Song) and it a song that sounds a bit more normal than the rest of the record because it has normal instruments in it like guitars and bells, the bells are on it I suppose because it is a christmas song and that's a good thing because it's near christmas now and it's good to have music for christmas because then you can play it at parties but i'm not sure this would be a good christmas party song and it would probably be best to listen to it if you were on your own for christmas.
Overall I would say that I thought this was a very good record and I thought it was very nice to hear what Scott Walker is up to these days because I have liked him for so long. I would give this record 10 out of 10 but if it was out of twenty I would give it 20 out of 20 because it is that good.
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