MUSIC PREVIEW
VLISTEN!
IAtatime when many pubs seem to be shutting their doors to bands. it's encouraging to see one expanding its provision for live music. Traders in Glasgow is opening 3 another room below its current premises; it’s slightly smaller in size with dungeon-like low ceiling for underground , (geddit‘?) music. while the ‘ upstairs will continue to feature more mainstream bands. Entry will still be | free to both parts ofthc pub and the live music I starts simultaneously. so i
punters can flit between both stations.
I As if we didn’thave I enoughchartsalready.the . TDK Campus (‘hart
makes its debut in October. compiled . monthly from 200 returns ' received from ‘leading I student opinion formers‘. i Who they? Well, student ' club and radio DJs plus writers on student publications. some of whom might never have formed an opinion in their lives that didn‘t relate directly to the consumption of foaming beverages and bagging off. It will be published monthly in Sky. NME. student press and feature on a syndicated programme distributed to all campus radio stations. ‘Acts such as Gary Clail. Mock Turtles. Living Colour and Blur all owe a great debt to their campus popularity.‘ trumpet the compilers. Streets Ahead. Living Colour? ‘We made you. Vernon Reid.‘ cry {
the students of Falkirk Tech. ’We can break you just as easily!‘ I These delicate waits from Reading - Slowdive ' to a man — will be signing | copies oftheir debut album Just For/t Day (and any other items you i may care to proffer. but keep it clean. pop kids) in Music Mania. 13 Byres Road on Sunday 22 from 3—4pm. prior to their show at the Mayfair that night. ( I More educational : opportunitiesin the i | Edinburgh area: The Adult Learning Project are laying on Seots Music l (‘lasses forflSatermM‘S concessions) at St Martin’s (‘hurch Hall. Murieston Crescent. Aspiring Aly Bains are asked to ‘bring yer fiddles. whistles and guitars and oni ithcr instruments' tac. sorry. to enrol on 3(lSept at 7pm. Classes are graded ‘frae beginners tae g advanccd‘. lir.hcuch‘
26 The List 13 — Zb'September 1991
l V CLASSICAL.
: Not by the book
Composer Michael Nyman's working relationship with filmmaker Peter Greenaway is one of the most productive liaisons in the business. The four albums collected in ‘The Nyman/Greenaway Soundtracks‘ (Virgin, 1989) are now augmented by ‘Prospero’s Books’, issued to accompany the release of the film. ‘Working with Greenaway seems to be different from working with anybody else,’ Nyman says. ‘Conventionally, it is the composer's job to make the music work with the images, but with Peter it is often the otherway. He allows me to develop things at length and somewhat independently of the film - it’s as though a lot of the music gets written prior to the event, which is very unusual. Generally, you tend to be a slave to the director’s ideas, whereas Greenaway is sometimes a slave to my
.. ‘ music.’
‘Prospero’s Books‘ is cast in a musical language instantly recognisable as Nyman’s, with its repetitive rhythmic patterns, deft balancing of densely structured passages with lighter, more pop-oriented melodies, and the sumptuously-textured harmonies which are the aural corollary of Greenaway’s lavish visual imagination.
‘There is a lot of vocal music. In “The Masque", for example, Peterjust gave me the words and told me to do what I wanted. I imposed almost operatic music on them, but with singers coming from a different vocal tradition, and made play with the contrast of their voices.
‘He then shot the scene almost like a rock video, where the music came first
Michael Nyman
and was the primary element. He likes to lock himself in musically, which seems to help him work, and it means I can write highly appropriate music without even seeing the script. Since I am into autonomous music, I like to dictate the shape of a piece, and it means that when I put together a soundtrack album, it is notjust cobbling together bits and pieces, but is composed music like anything else I write.’
Nyman will be performing the music with his Band in London in October, but has still to appear up here, an omission which is badly in need of rectifying. Forthcoming Decca releases feature his Saxophone Concerto (played by John Harle) and a recording of his songs for Ute Lemper, while Piano Circus include his ‘1—100’ in their next album. (Kenny Mathieson)
‘Prospero’s Books‘ is available on Decca Classics.
Altan states
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. I
Allan ‘I suppose we are now regarded as one of the best groups out of Ireland,’ declares a quietly pleased Frankie Kennedy, flute player and spokesman for Altan. ‘Other bands have brought in a lot of outside influences to satisfy the demand for crossover music, but we consciously stayed with the traditional music we loved and concentrated on arranging the accompaniment, the guitar and bouzouki/cittern parts, and we stuck by the Gaelic songs. And you can detect a shift back to those values. De Dannan have come back with a strong album, and Stockton‘s Wing are returning to their acoustic roots.’ Allan’s second album, ‘The Red Crow’, is the biggest-selling record on E the Green Linnet label, winning an NAIRD award — ‘the Grammy Award of the independent labels’ — in the USA.
Theirlirstalbum, ‘Horse’, has chalked up Green Linnet‘s second-highest sales. '
The band are now about to enter the studio to record the follow-up to ‘The Bed Crow‘, using the same producer. ‘And,’ adds Kennedy, ‘the same balance of traditional songs and instrumentals as the last, although a few more of the tunes are composed by members of the band.’
They are breaking their rehearsal schedule lorthe album to play this month’s date at the Tramway, and are bringing three fiddlers—the usual complement of two augmented by new man Kieran Tourish - lorthe occasion. ‘The very fact that we can keep at what we do and find a wide audience gives us a lot of satisfaction,’ Kennedy concludes. and “NME” have been very strong in their praise. “NME” gave the album five stars and rock heroes like The Waterboys‘ Mike Scott go into print saying how much he
; admires the hand. But I’ve always
known thatthis music, our music, played well, is as exciting as any rock or blues band.’ (Norman Chalmers) Allan play the Tramway, Glasgow on Sun15.
m:— "j
Mr blue skies
After his term in
Slobboville, Lloyd Cole has returned to the fold of the neatly groomed. Paul W. Hullah wondered why Cole bothered, since he seemed to be having a better time than most of us.
It must be a real drag being a pop star. I mean. all that having to reinvent your image every time a new album‘s-worth of songs drops out of the old psyche. 'l'ake Lloyd Cole. for instance. he knows all about persona-switching. Only eighteen months ago. he's hanging round in New York pool-halls with any Hells Angel that‘ll have him. all hair grease'n‘stubble and last night's Budweiser breath. Yet here he is this morning. clean-shaven and impeccably coiffured. holding court and discussing his brand new album with all the smooth aplomb of an English academic beat-aesthete. Which is. erm. the image he favoured be are the booze and pool-cue took his fancy across the Atlantic. 'I’hat ’before‘ was between 1984 and 1988. when the adoptive Glaswegian (he was born in Derby) wore black polo-necks whilst singing in a neo-Velvets style about structuralism and Norman Mailer (but always in a witty way — Pat Kane he was not). In those days Lloyd fronted the (.‘ommotions. the band whose three smart long-players provided the ultimate mid-80s soundtrack — ‘l’efect Skin‘. ‘Brand New Friend‘. ’My Bag‘ — for the considerable student angst pervading Tory Britain over that
f period. His first solo LP, Lloyd (016, i
appeared in February 1990. a meaty screech ofan affair featuring the electric guitar strafing of ex-Voidoid Robert Quine as foil to (‘ole‘s melancholy. still lexically gymnastic lyrics.
I could present myself how lwanted, and thatalbum sleeve reflects how I felt atthat time. ljust became a big, ugly, tat bastard.
That was the one that had the lank—haircd. almost bearded Cole on the cover. the image he's now left behind. What a complicated business it is. this rock‘n'roll.
‘I‘m slightly embarrassed by that image. in retrospect.‘ he winces, when reminded of last year‘s easy-riding. bourbon-swilling Cole.