Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 16:59:25 -0800 From: nelson@TRIFID.ASTRO.UCLA.EDU Subject: Re: Felt Felt was great for most of their 10-year career. Toward the end they got a bit spotty (i'm thinking everything after _poem of the river_, although _the pictorial jackson review_ is ok). What I'd highly recommend is _Foerver Breathes The Lonely Word_, which comes pretty close to being a masterpiece in my book. Also extraordinary is _Ignite The Seven Cannons_ with what might be their best song ever, "Primitive Painters". The whole album is Robin-Guthrie-produced, and you can sort of tell. I haven't listened to _The Strange Idols Pattern_ as much as these other two, but it's starting to strike me as another brilliant record. Going further back, _The Splendour Of Fear_ has a few interesting tracks, but nothing to lose sleep over if you don't have it. The first album, _Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty_ is nice and as far as I remember, mostly instrumental, but I'm not too familiar with it. I think you can still get the first two albums together on one CD, as you can with the next two. Between _...Cannons_ and _Forever Breathes..._ came _Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death_ which is an incredibly short set of instrumentals with a lot of variety and it probably shows the band at their most creative moment. There are several other EPs scattered around in there. Their sound? Lou Reed, sort of crooning style vocals; great-great-great guitars, at least until Maurice Deebank left; very cool organ playing, starting with _...Cannons_ (i think). Popsongs alternating with some of the best instrumentals of all time. Plus you have to love how Lawrence uses the same damn vocal phrasing and inflection on *a lot* of the songs! It never fails to amuse me. Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 09:33:49 +0100 From: Andrew Norman (nja@LEICESTER.AC.UK) Subject: Re: Felt Dewdrops Records wrote on Wed, 26 Jun 1996 > > That's a tough one. the majority of it is "must have", but I'd say > either Forever Breathes The Lonely Word or The Splendour Of Fear > with follow-up choices being The Strange Idols Pattern and Ignite > The Seven Cannons. The stuff that isn't all that good includes The > Pictorial Jackson Review, Poem Of The River, and Me And A Monkey On > The Moon. "Poem" is my favourite! In chronological order, with marks out of ten: Cherry Red records: ------------------- Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty (6) The Splendour of Fear (7) The Strange Idol's Pattern and other Short Stories (7) Ignite the Seven Cannons (9) The first three are twin guitar, bass (sometimes), drums. Martin Duffy joined on keyboards for the fourth one, produced by Robin Guthrie and with Liz Fraser on "Primitive Painters" (one of the most perfect songs ever recorded). She's supposedly on one of the other songs on the album, too, but I can't hear her. It has a typical lush, full-sounding Guthrie production, very different to the flatter, more straightforward sound of the first three. Lawrence claims he wasn't very happy with the sound, though he did get Robin in to produce a couple of later singles. All these were released on CD with two albums on each disc - a Spanish guitar instrumental was dropped from TSIP for some reason (probably Lawrence's insistence that albums should have an even number of tracks). There's an excellent compilation called "Absolute Classic Masterpieces", which compiles tracks from these albums with an assortment of singles, B-sides etc. "Gold Mine Trash" was an earlier, less complete compilation. There's also a box set with the four albums, ACM, and a bonus disc with five extra B-sides (not essential). Creation records: ----------------- Let the Snakes Crinkle their Heads to Death (4) <20 minutes of instrumentals. For obsessive fans only. Forever Breathes the Lonely Word (9) Poem of the River (10) "Forever" was Alan McGee's favourite Creation album at one time (before he discovered yob-rock). These two are splendid - Martin Duffy's swirling organ, great songs, Lawrence comes closer to singing in tune than he ever has, some fine guitar work especially on "Poem". Maurice Deebank, Felt's main guitarist, had left, and on "Poem" and "Monkey" session players were brought in to compensate, to good effect. There was a German (I think) CD with both of these on one disc, Creation issued all the albums in generic white (ugly) sleeves recently - the older CDs have the original sleeves. The Pictorial Jackson Review (7) Train above the City (7, but depends on your taste) TPJR is a collection of songs recorded with minimal production, with two long Duffy instrumentals on the B-side. "Train" is an album of jazz instrumentals recorded by Duffy and Ainge (the drummer) alone, on piano, vibraphone and drums. Both on one CD. Me and a Monkey on the Moon (8) Released on el records, because Creation couldn't get it out fast enough for Lawrence's "ten albums in ten years" plan. Moog, lots of extra musicians, some very poignant and melancholy songs. Compilations: "Bubble Gum Perfume", which collects songs from the five Creation albums and singles (including a couple produced by Robin Guthrie). Since superseded by "Absolute Classic Masterpieces 2", which rather pointlessly adds a few more album tracks and splits album tracks and singles over two CDs. If I had to pick one, I'd go for "Poem of the River" or "Absolute Classic Masterpieces". -- Andrew Norman, Leicester, England 27/06/96 nja@le.ac.uk, http://www.engg.le.ac.uk/staff/Andrew.Norman/ Acetone - If You Only Knew ------------ Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 07:54:32 +0000 From: Andrew Norman Subject: Re: Ride and Felt Felt: Can't go wrong with anything on Cherry Red, the Creation albums "Let the Snakes..." and "Train Above the City" are instrumental albums best avoided until you have the others ("Let the Snakes..." is also very short, less than twenty minutes long). My favourites are "Poem of the River", "Forever Breathes the Lonely Word" and "Ignite the Seven Cannons" - the latter has the epic single with Liz Fraser "Primitive Painters" and was produced by Robin Guthrie. There are a couple of compilations (one Creation, one Cherry Red), both called "Absolute Classic Masterpieces", both have a lot of non-album singles and B-sides which are otherwise impossible to find these days. There was a final album on el called "Me and a Monkey on the Moon" which isn't represented on either compilation and is excellent. If you can find the Cherry Red box set, that's worth getting - the first four albums back-to-back on two CDs, the first "Absolute Classic Masterpieces" (about half of which isn't on the other albums) and a bonus disc with five otherwise unavailable singles/b-sides. -- Andrew Norman, Leicester, England andrew@riverrun.demon.co.uk http://www.riverrun.demon.co.uk/ http://www.riverrun.demon.co.uk/singles/ (updated 9/9/97) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 09:20:15 +0000 From: Andrew Norman Subject: Re: felt, toopure.comm On 18 Oct 97 at 21:27, wrongeye wrote: > hmm > so inn my record buying binge today (17 records. 1 cd.. i was bad), > i came across a record that i had never seen before. i didnt know > what i was, but it was produced by robin guthrie, and vocals by > elizabeth frazer. naturally i swiped it up. its on cherry red > records and i thinkthe band is called felt. never heard of em. > someone tell me all about it. i think the single is called > primitive painters. Ah yes, the bi-monthly "anyone tell me about Felt?" thread. Robin Guthrie produced "Ignite the Seven Cannons" (from which this single was taken, only track on which Liz sings) and "Ballad of the Band" (another single, their first on Creation). Felt started off as an indie guitar band (but always with a twist to the sound - no mere Byrds copyists, they sounded more like a quiet Television), and across the ten albums encompassed the lush grandiose "Primitive Painters" (Robin's finest non-Cocteaus production), jazz ("Train above the City, instrumental album), moog pop ("Space Blues"), and all sorts of other wonderful music. Albums (all are fairly short): Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty The Splendour of Fear The Strange Idol's Pattern and Other Short Stories (Cherry Red, all guitar/bass/drums with poetic lyrics) Ignite the Seven Cannons (Still Cherry Red, the addition of Martin Duffy on Hammond gave a more ornate sound) Let the Snakes Crinkle their Heads to Death (Moved to Creation, this is less than 20 minutes of strange and beautiful instrumentals in various styles) Forever Breathes the Lonely Word Poem of the River (The second has some great instrumental work, as one of the original guitarists had left when they signed to Creation they started to use extra musicians) The Pictorial Jackson Review (Simple songs on one side, two Martin Duffy piano instrumentals on the other) Train Above the City (Duffy and drummer Gary Ainge make a vibes/piano/drums jazz instrumental album, the only contributions from singer/songwriter Lawrence are the song titles) Me and a Monkey on the Moon (El records, as Creation couldn't get it out quick enough to fulfill Lawrence's "ten albums in ten years" plan, back to songs) There are a couple of compilations called "Absolute Classic Masterpieces" which cover the Cherry Red and Creation years, both have a lot of non-album singles added to them (ten singles were released alongside the ten albums, most of them weren't on any of the albums).