Okay, what’s happened to Shifting City? I was expecting to either be unconvinced at best, or at worse if I’d had any high hopes at all (to my shame, I didn’t) to be not unsurprisingly a little bit disappointed by this re-release, but from the start,
The Noise came crashing through powerfully into my mind, all beefed up, funky and boppy (and in fleeting moments almost Bill Nelsonesque in style), a great opening, but could it all last.
So track two,
Crash, well track one in itself 'crashed' through favourably, so what hope has this track got,
“round and round we go…” in an almost kraftwerkian refrain, building up very quickly in a techno ascent of musical peaks. The synth repeat throughout the lyrics definitely sounds sharper, and only two tracks into SC and I’m in no doubt that ‘definition of sound’ rules now on this remastered album. Great stuff, I can’t quite believe that I’m feeling this, but, I’m actually excited by it all, as the music starts to dictate my typing, fingers dancing to the tune, and then, it all stops… its
Here We Go up next. Shame, I was really getting into the march with the first two tracks, and much as I love
HWG which was one of the few tracks I was ever completely bothered about on the original release of the SC album, I’m feeling a bit let down now that its interrupted the upward progress and flow of the album.
HWG is one of John’s best songs, okay, I know its maybe a bit too subtle for some fans tastes, but for me it would fit beautifully sitting between
Travel and
Quiet City, so at 5 plus minutes into it now and heading for its climax I’ve forgiven it for pulling me (ever so gently) down from the highs of
The Noise and
Crash. Perhaps John should have reconsidered the position of the tracks when he had the opportunity during the remastering of this album? Am I alone in thinking this…
Shadow Man eases us back up into the techno, it’s a light enough touch musically after the ambience of
HWG, but it still leaves me even more uncertain about
HWG’s position as the third track in.
Shadow Man in itself is as funky as ever in a: ‘I’m lying down on the settee tapping my toes together, randomly pointing and waving one finger up in the air', kind of way,
”as the sun goes down, I wouldn’t forget…”, yes, great stuff.
Pause for a moment, four tracks in and I’m enjoying this album, and quite impressed by the magic that remastering has achieved, gone is my previous attitude about this album:
”your voice moves, but I can’t hear what you say…” was my reaction towards its ’98 former self. I was hesitant about purchasing this 2009 edition, and its been sitting gathering dust at home since I got it last December, the wrapper was only removed this morning, and just before my listen through I flicked through the booklet, and really nice it is too. Love the way the lyrics are set out like story text, it’s a technique that really works well for some of Johns songs. There’s a great centre spread photograph of the man with the briefcase, walking under a flyover and away from us. In the past, with the first release of SC back in ’98 and when I unexpectedly found that album, I would have unconsciously translated that image as a sad farewell, youthful memories of John’s past solo career, the long lost John Foxx walking away into the white void to disappear forever. But fast forward 12 years and now today I see that image more positively, it’s saying instead, here’s John Foxx, he’s still around and we can still follow him into the light ahead, on with his journey, musical, artistic, whatever takes his fancy.
Through My Sleeping, this is one song I really want to like 100%, I love the music (again, tiny shades of 80’s Bill Nelson that I never noticed before seem to be at play), but for some reason I feel that its maybe too over worded, perhaps that’s not the right way to express what I’m getting at (though I’m bracing myself for the lyrical repeat that’s yet to come in track eight: Shifting City!), but I’m just too aware of John’s voice in the first part, and the end instrumental would have benefited from some more musical variety in it.
Forgotten Years, nope, I’ve now come to the conclusion that it’s a terrible track, not even worthy of a B-side, one to skip, a real downer and a total anticlimax in the middle of the album. John, how could you keep it on this remastered edition! Its like the Quiet Man went out in his smart suit and tie but forgot to wash and iron his dirty and crumpled shirt! - Forgotten Years, yes, best thing for it…
Everyone, on the other hand, does have a mysterious quality, it’s a Japan:
Ghosts kind of mood, which really works as a style for John, yep, its much improved, cleaner, more interesting, hmm, if only
Forgotten Years could have been completely reworked into a similar vein as this track.
The whistle blows, the steam blasts out, the wheels slowly turn, the great iron beast heaves itself into juddering motion, and pushing hard against friction it lumbers forwards on the tracks, yes, …its
Shifting City!!!Like a nightmare on steel wheels it wheezes steadily away into the night, or, maybe not, hang on, I’m hearing lots of ‘new’ sounds on
Shifting City, okay, that’s got to be imagination, but I’m actually enjoying this journey. Crikey, that was quick, its all over, silly me, but I think I’ve been remembering the OmnidelicallyDeliciouslyPsychopathic nearly-live version or something, the one that used to go on and on, forever and an ever. Yikes, looks like I’ve possibly been completely wrong and unjustifiably unfair in the past, and mixing up my memory of album versions, this SC ‘09 is really… neat, um, I’d actually have enjoyed a bit more of it, blimey, there’s no pleasing some folk.
Just when I though I was listening to a musical break in the highly interesting
Shifting City, suddenly
Concrete Bulletproof Invisible starts up. Actually, I’ve always had a soft spot for this gently inane sounding little number, and
CBI, picks up where
Shadow Man left off. It’s got the charm to get your lazy arse up and off from the settee, finger thrust high and proudly into the air, and doing randomly embarrassing jerky upper torso movements. Its all like a scene from Peep Show on TV, and you start pretending to be Jeremy, pretending to be in a cool techno band with Super Hans, you can’t resist it, you are Jeremy, babbling away:
” Super Hans got a bass loop for our track that is so good that when he tried turning it off, he physically couldn't do it.” An Ocean We Can Breath, a sublime track, and again just like
Here we Go it comes in amidst all the techno of SC, shockingly dropping the pace right down again after
CBI, making me think that the track listing is all screwed up. John, why squander such beauty, was it a moment of artistic miscalculation, like a confused Botticelli throwing your musical version of
The Birth Of Venus into the dark sweaty confines of a rave full of tracksuited E heads, and all those intensely luv’d up faces shouting out:
”Hey Doll, wot u doin ere?”.
”There’s a quiet splendour…” and with John there very often is,
An Ocean We Can Breath is a great vision to end an album on, so much so that I’m not even going to bother playing the bonus tracks, well not yet anyway…
In the past I’ve down-played the merits of SC ’98 in my comments on here, but the SC 2009 suite is a fine album, and if anyone hasn’t ever owned the album, or is putting off replacing the original then I’d say its worth getting a copy. I can’t put my finger on quite what has improved it for me, sure it sounds crisper, and Its hard to believe that its not been ‘ever so slightly’ remixed or tweaked. It’s a great remastering job, and all credit to the people at Dallas, they’ve very nearly turned this old disbeliever into a convert as far as SC is concerned, I wouldn’t go as far as to say its John’s best work for me, but it now has a proud place amongst all of his albums with Louis.
