Фирма Tiny Global Productions

Gut Feels

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Джон Россалл, поддержанный друзьями из глэм-эры, вернулся со своим лучшим альбомом за всю историю.

Саймон Риверс, почти незаметный на обочине андеграундной поп-музыки, уже четвертый десяток лет делает сладкие, мощные и сокрушительные записи.

Bingo Harry - это знакомство с группой через некоторые из их первоначальных домашних записей и первых студийных работ. После окончания эпидемии группа будет регулярно давать концерты и записывать лучшие из десятков недавно написанных треков.

There was a time during the punk era when the only commercially-available Velvet Underground studio album in many territories was Loaded. Which is a fine album, but from the vantage it offered alone, it was difficult to reconcile the purported massiv

Much has been written about Young Marble Giants' small, perfect catalogue, which contained roughly two-dozen songs, nearly each one a perfect gem. Less is known about his long wilderness years after the break-up of his first professional band. His next project, The Gist, chopped YMG's minimalism into a new sound. This Is Love, Public Girls and Fool For A Valentine showed his songs to be razor-sharp, but the album's fragmented pieces were a step too far for some, though even the strangest, Carnival Headache, when cast in sunlight by Alison Statton's combo Weekend, was as fine a song as any he'd written - and Love At First Sight became a million-seller when covered by Etienne Daho. Then Stuart disappeared. A rmid-90s resurgence led to fine albums done on low budgets, before more silence followed. The Gist's 2018's release Holding Pattern - unexpected and then quickly followed by YMG singer Alison Statton's first new album with her accompanist Spike in two decades, adding fuel to public interest. The Devil Laughs, recorded a few years back, is a compelling addition to the canon of the 21st century songwriting. Stuart's generally unadorned musical presentation does not hinder his appreciation for the skills of Louis Philippe, whose iconic arrangements across an array of Él label albums inspire the fierce devotion of aficionados around the world. Nor does the unvarnished solidity of Stuart's arrangements deter Louis from hearing possibilities for their presentation in styles which take inspiration from the perfection of 1960's studio technology that led to the rise of Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, along with less-recognised names such as Bones Howe and Roy Halee. Tidy Away is Young Marble Giants redux, though the backing vocals hint at maturity which band didn't live to see. Fighting To Lose, written with producer Ken Brake, would pass as a worthy b-side to Bridge Over Troubled Water, and although the songs are otherwise Stuart's, Louis fans will delight at several, like Love Hangover and Sky Over Water, which display his style and production genius as succinctly as anything on his own albums. The Devil Laughs is as out of its time as Colossal Youth was - its subtle but immediate beauty, devoid of "rock", is a recording best understood in the light of those obscure groundbreakers who inspired it - the faux barbershop vocals of Smile-era Beach Boys, the studio lustre of Tom Wilson's work with Simon & Garfunkel, a dash of The Swingle Sisters and French chanson - along with enough hints of Young Marble Giant's modernist folk abstraction to satisfy longtime fans. The Devil Laughs is a small masterpiece of pure expression.

In the wake of Young Marble Giants' breakup, two camps were created, with Stuart Moxham taking the band's minimalist, geometric play to extremes and Alison Statton adding more warmth and feeling to the same basic template and creating something stunning but based in popular forms. Those two opposing - almost knee-jerk - means of forging new paths away from one of music's most astonishingly unique debuts both happened to include Stuart's brother - Alison's former boyfriend - Phil Moxham. In recent years, both artists have almost reversed course, with Stuart proving himself an ace songwriter in classic pop form, and Alison's work again approaching a modern abstraction of quiet folk music - experimental but accessible. But that's another tale. Without a real template to guide him, Stuart's new form of music - as The Gist - was widely regarded as wildly uneven. Stuart admits that he didn't know which way to go, so in perverse style, he decided to take all directions at once. The Gist's original discography stood at a scant 18 songs, but only seven featured Stuart's own voice, often in heavily processed and oddly mixed form. So while The Gist's label, Rough Trade, had the widest array of unique voices in popular music, Stuart buried his own voice. Sales disappointed. The Gist were dropped. A decade later, starting with a critical reevaluation of The Gist's sole album, Embrace The Herd, in an issue of Mojo, the tide begin to turn. Ambience in pop music had enjoyed a cult following from Eno on, but the non-linear structure of many of The Gist's songs had certain parallels with the rise of artists such as Aphex Twin and Seefeel. One song from the era was covered by Etienne Daho in France. Sounding rather advanced for French pop at the time, it ended up selling over a million copies and was later covered by Lush and sampled by DJ Koze with Lambchop singer/songwriter Kurt Wagner. The Gist's story could have been different. Recent discovery of a trove of unreleased songs, versions and demos showed that Stuart had ample material on a par with his YMG work, sometimes in rough demo form, but often in five or six complete, entirely different arrangements. With the 2017 album of unreleased material by The Gist, Holding Pattern, a new audience discovered the band and the release sold out quickly. Interior Windows adds 13 new performances or alternate versions to the band's catalogue, and does the service of finally making both sides of The Gist's first 7" 45 (recorded at the same session as the final YMG single) available again, along with their contribution to the Rough Trade / NME classic compilation C81, and in keeping with The Gist's tradition, at least one song on which Stuart does not appear.