Day 0737 - New Wave

The Auteurs “New Wave” (1993)

The Auteurs were started by then couple Luke Haines and Alice Redman with former classmate Glenn Collins.  They put together a demo and were quickly signed to Hut Records.  “New Wave” was their first full-length release.

The entry in the book talks about them being progenitors of ‘Britpop’… but then, as frequently happens with genres or musical movements, several albums in the book have been given this honour.   I do find it interesting that so many of these musical movements can spring up like this, with multiple different bands all relatively independently arriving at similar musical destinations.

While I was living in the UK there seemed to be this trend towards artists who ruminated on everyday things (the Streets, Arctic Monkeys) whereas I’ve always preferred more obscure lyrics that maybe use a bit of clever or creative wordplay.   This band seems to have a more cinematic/theatrical vibe, such as on opening track "Show Girl" with the crashing, flashy intro suddenly vanishing into a quietly subdued verse.  The arrangements are bit more interesting than straight-ahead ‘rawk n roll’ and I could certainly hear similarities between this band and artists like Blur or Suede (Supergrass at a stretch).

While I won’t say they’re my new favourite band, I do think they are an artist that requires further investigation.  

Day 0654 - Moss Side Story

Barry Adamson "Moss Side Story" (1989)

Barry had amassed a pretty impressive portfolio prior to this album.  He'd played in Magazine, the Buzzcocks, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and a couple of other acts.   Adamson cast this, his first solo album as the soundtrack to a non-existent film noir.   In part it was a reflection of Adamson's love of film soundtrack music (the influences of composers such as Bernard Hermann, Ennio Morricone and even Angelo Badalamenti are never far away), and in part he set it as a sort of musical CV with which to try and rope in some actual film scoring work.   That did eventually bear fruit and Adamson would go on to contribute scores for films including "Natural Born Killers"  "The Beach" and "Lost Highway".

The album is a masterpiece, mixing noirish jazz, frantic rock interludes, smouldering piano, nightmarish ambience, and even a cheeky wee cover of the theme to "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"  Adamson throws everything he has at the album.  Judging from the album cover (never judge by the cover!) and his connection with the Bad Seeds, I had thought this might be a bit of a crooning record with a touch of murder-blues, but it ended up being so much more.