I know I’m the last person on the planet to hear Impossible but I just had to say something. First the cover-art, which is some exceptional collage work from the 70s. But what the hell is it? What is the head? Is it a stadium? The back of a cruise-liner? Either way, I can see thousands of people heading into a fire – a very Burroughs-style of imagery there in the cut-up figure on the front.
Which is appropriate really for this cut-up of an album. On initial listens, it was hard at first to hear much difference between the originals and these re-workings, but slowly I found Impossible’s dark, stripped-back and sprawled out minimalist architecture quietly connected (the From Trash material benefitting greatly from this). Adult Concerns is a great introduction – the whole Burning Car feel sets up the dark edges that follow. Love the beat on it too – it feels like Foxx has remembered when he and Chris Cross sat in on Lee Perry’s Bob Marley sessions back in the 70s and that can only be good thing.
It’s just my opinion but the stretched out haze of X-Ray Vision is far superior to the original version, and then there’s a fantastic version of The Man Who Dies Every Day and the new version of Crash and Burn is a fantastic closer.
I really like this new, almost shredded direction; the shredded vocals, the rusting metallic synths, the filtered drums on Walk This Way. More please!
