Scott Walker. (RIP March 2019)

I don't why anyone ever thought "Tilt" was abrasive or difficult.

I mean some parts are kinda? And the subject matter is often chilling. It’s kinda exactly what the titles tilt and drift suggest - the guy who made climate of Hunter and nite flights wandering further out

Yes, I can only assume a lot of the people who were surprised with it hadn't heard Nite Flights and Climate of Hunter.

Der Spiegel is reporting cancer, but does so at the end of an idiotic "golly gee, shame he went crazy after No Regrets and produced nothing anyone can listen to" article, so...

when tilt came out it was abrasive and difficult

the goal posts moved after that

it is absolutely a more harrowing sound world than nite flights or climate, come on now

Harrowing? I don't find it harrowing.

and do not overlook the two long tracks scott wrote and arranged for Ute Lemper on her Punishing Kiss album - they are the way station between tilt and drift.

― valet doberman (Jon not Jon)

I need to get on this!

you are in for a treat emil.y - they add up to the length of a decent size EP (tracks are "Scope J" and "Lullaby')

Where do the sewers go? They gotta go somewhere

i guess the farmer in the city could be harrowing?

Lol

Put on Scope J just now. This is so good. May very well be the best Scott Walker song.

Her lullaby is so much better than the version on soused as well

LOL (xxp) Ignore me, I don't find any music harrowing.

Apparently, when "Tilt" was coming out, Fontana records held a listening do and invited notable celeb Scott fans (e.g. Marc Almond) but when it came on, most of them fled!

Try Alfred Schnittke's 4th string quartet.

xp

On the freak zone at the weekend, before the news this morning, maconie went from mark hollis solo track into Cossacks Are

Oh god, I'm only a couple of minutes into 'Scope J'... how have I never listened to this before?

Same. Astonishing. Lullaby doesn't seem to be on Spotify

Don't forget in the midst of his latter period work he recorded a Bond song for 'The World is Not Enough'. Why they didn't get him in 67 at the peak of his commercial success is a mystery, would have killed doing the theme for 'You Only Live Twice'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCt4O4gJifQ

If you go away as I know you must
There'll be nothing left in this world to trust
Just an empty room full of empty space
Like the empty look I see on your face
And I'd have been the shadow of your shadow
If you might have kept me by your side

RIP
what a singular artist

I don't why anyone ever thought "Tilt" was abrasive or difficult.

:( rip

Speaking of Bond themes and '67, the Walker Brothers did record the theme song for "Deadlier Than The Male" kind of a 007 knock-off (Bulldog Drummond being the Bond-like hero):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6HSbanREbE

"It's kind of "jump scare," but the moment where the percussion comes in on "The Cockfighter" always sets me off even when I'm anticipating it. That atmosphere is so cold!"

One track on The Drift is very quiet, and then Donald Duck makes a guest appearance. It's the only time an album has made me jump. I can't remember which track because it's one of those albums I listen to in a single go. I'll look it up on the internet.

It's called The Escape, that's what it's called.

On a more serious note, The Guardian's obit repeats the old factoid about Climate of Hunter being the lowest-selling record on Virgin Records. Is that true? It sounds implausible. It got to number sixty and only spent two weeks on the chart, but even accounting for "the long tail" I can't imagine the likes of Chili Charles' 1973 folk-rock obscurity Busy Corner or Comus' second album - from Virgin's early prog period - selling more copies. It had a widespread international release. Also, I'm going to look at Discogs.com and see if people have started selling the LP version of The Drift for £700 yet.

that was brought up somewhere else here recently. the album got released in multiple countries and was reissued not long after the initial release so i doubt it was virgin's lowest-selling record.

Xposts

Lullaby was a bonus track only on the Japanese edition of the Lemper CD.

It and Scope J were also both included on the Five Easy Pieces box set

RIP

Five Easy Pieces does a surprisingly great job of summing up Scott before The Drift with its themed CDs, and it picks up a lot of stray tracks. I believe it makes the Pola X soundtrack redundant for Scott completists, too (ditto for the four Scott tracks from Nite Flights, though I listen to that album whole sometimes anyway).

It's the "This Is How You Disappear" disc of the FEP box I've decided to go for this evening.

I wish I still had that set ☹️

RIP, obv not much to add other than I love his music, especially the later records.

I laughed all over again this morning at those pictures of him with Sunn, there is nothing about his outfit or demeanor that would make you think he was anything other than some weird drone metal dude, he just looks like he's in Sunn

wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about this…but…I co-wrote the notes to the first release of any of his music in the U.S. since the 60s: I think Scott I was released stateside in 67 but none of the others were at the time. it's a compilation of his beloved 60s material. I didn't know anything about him until a few years beforehand…but I was gung ho, eager for discerning americans to appreciate this unique artist from Ohio who had taken off to Europe for an ascetic Ingmar Bergman existence, never to look back.

It made next to no impression, and any significant impression as such was negative. Xgau panned it, and it was clear to me that the Scott I-Scott IV shit was repulsive to his generation of critics and listeners, being that the context in which that music was created was light entertainment, Jack Jones, Englebert Humperdinck, the kind of shit that Xgau and his peers would consider to be what right on rock and roll was supposed to demolish, or at least oppose. The way he sang drove Xgau's cohort crazy and they couldn't get past it. And the Other music/WFMU people who were my peers didn't bite then; that would take place in the 00s, when I suspect many of you guys discovered him.

Yet the 60s shit is what the likes of Jarvis and Marc Almond et al repped for in 30th Century Man: I think neither one of those guys likes the Tilt'/Drift era at all.

the compilation was released in 1996.

The Razor and Tie compilation, yes? I deeply appreciated that release, it was what fully opened the door for me to understand his work after referrals from friends and mentions/covers from other artists. I thank you for it.

Honestly I never understood the Marc/Jarvis/etc revulsion or at least looking askance at the later work. It's on a very obvious throughline, as obvious as Mark Hollis's in a more compact sense.

Cope went off him too

Weird memory I have is of a Canadian friend I had just before the turn of the century who was a real music nut but to my shock had never heard of Scott Walker. I guess everyone has their blindspots but it made me think maybe there really was a big Atlantic divide still going on with him.

Looking at the NYT homepage now and no mention of him, so yeah.

Not where I grew up but generally, yes.

Have a different memory of the impact of that Razor and Tie comp -- it was all over WZBC at the time and that heavy airplay was my introduction to him.

i had already found an import of the Boy Child CD by the time the razor & tie comp came along but I agree it was a heroic shot [with a great booklet ;)]

Seems really rare in this day and age for a cultural figure to have a death that is breaking news on the BBC page yet registers nothing on the NYT page. And vice versa.

I think j cocker likes post-tilt stuff? He performed a song from the drift at that concert and he is the person who came up with the description “blocks of sound” that Walker always used to describe his approach

that's a nice suit

that's a swanky suit

Ha that’s gwb right?

I think it was Jarvis who guest-reviewed Tilt for Select at the time, and gave it something like "10 stars...or 2 stars...who really knows?!"