Tribute albums while lauding a suitable band or artist worthy of such praise, can so often be lacklustre affairs. I strongly believe a tribute album should add to one's experience of a band's music; (hence I would be keener to see Queen fronted by Paul Rodgers, than the Musical Box). Indeed progressive rock tends to suffer from at best indifferent tributes, where one of two tracks may stand out, but are too often a complete waste of time. I usually want with these to hear some new but anchored someway to something familiar - although ocasionally excellent imitations e.g. Mike Keneally's Siberian Khatru, also can hit the button.
So with the advantage of finding a cheap 2nd hand copy of this Italian Krimson tribute (well under half the list price), I first played this album with some trepidation. But there had been no need to believe I had made a poor purchase. The Letters has a consistency of reinterpretation from the originals, while usually finding something different to say within the arrangements on the majority of familiar tunes. And it has to be said that when many other tributes fall flat and only provide 70 minutes of music, The Letters clocks in at 180 minutes plus.
So how does The Letters differ from many other tributes? A lot of tributes seemed rushed affairs. Get some named artists in to cover a competitive band's tunes, rehearse and record it in short time. Lesser known musicians are often employed to pad out the album, but either won't risk (or lack the ability) do anything other than a second rate clone-job OR less commonly, bravely dismantle and reconstruct into a radically new version which mayget folks talking. I don't normally want to hear near-identical versions, when I have the original artist's tune fixed in my mind. I want hear a musician/band demonstrate they have the musical ability to take something from the original and arrange/display it in a new and unexpected way. And there are those albums which cherry-pick the odd cover from a band's studio album, to compile tribute compilation, (e.g. "Blue Wind" from Niacin's 'Time Crunch' ending up on the Jeff Beck 'The Loner' tribute): the lazy way of making a tribute. Magna Carta as well as its sister labels, Road Runner and Tone Center, seem to produce the least satisfactory tributes, while appearing to be able to turn them out on a production line (e.g. separate John Coltrane, Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jeff Beck and Miles Davis tributes from Tone Center in the last 12 months) - maybe they are too indiscriminant.
However, this Mellow tributes makes the effort through most if not all of the tunes offered, to put new complexions on the familiar by : 1. taking the folk or jazz elements so often bubbling away under the surface of the original Krimson tunes, and emphasis these; 2. arrange for different instrumentation; 3. and perhaps the cracked English of the Italian singers, in slightly changing the annouceation or emphasis of the language/meaning, causing me to listen to the lyrics in a new way.
The Letters, is an album which provides many ideas about how a tribute should be made, and so just deserves 4 stars, especially when it is getting many a play locally. And it reminds me, it is about time I got down Mellow's Giant Giant tribute and listen again!
CD ONE (78:56):
Virtuous Circle (including: Entry of the Chameleons)
1. STEFANO BOLLANI - Frame by frame (3:13)
2. GERMINALE - Doctor diamond (5:32)
3. NEMA NIKO - The talking drum (7:25)
4. SPIROSFERA - Cat food (4:05)
5. ROVERSI/CAIMI/MENOTTI - Discipline (5:25)
6. SOUNDVISION - One more red nightmare (6:37)
7. ANATROFOBIA - A sailor's tale (5:00)
8. TILION - One time (9:09)
9. TAPROBAN - Lark's tongues in aspic part 2 (6:25)
10. PROPHEXY - The great deceiver (3:52)
11. THREE OF A CHARMING PAIR - Inner garden I & II (5:58)
12. GIARDINI D'AUTUNNO - Formentera lady (8:41)
13. PSYCONOESIS - Starless (7:34)
CD TWO (76:55):
When I Say Stop, Continue (including: no photo, no recording, no smoking)
1. GOAD - Epitaph (9:00)
2. COSTA/MOMBRINI/PIAZZI - Lady of the dancing water (3:47)
3. JET LAG - Pictures of a city (7:21)
4. UBI MAIOR - Prince Rupert awakes (4:48)
5. L'IMBROGLIO - Providence (5:02)
6. MALIBRAN I talk to the wind (5:13)
7. FLOATING STATE - Exiles (8:32)
8. NOTTURNO CONCERTANTE - Cadence and cascade (5:00)
9. GREENWALL - Lark's tongues in aspic part 1 (13:06)
10. CABOTO - Moonchild (3:14)
11. THE SLOWMOVIES - Matte kudasai (4:32)
12. ZAQ - In the court of the Crimson King (6:51)
13. MARIPOSA - Sex sleep eat drink dream (4:29)
CD THREE (26:12):
1974 EP: This Night Wounds Time
1. MOSAIC ORCHESTRA - Red (5:08)
2. COMFORT - We we'll let you know/Fracture (11:13)
3. NODO GORDIANO - Lament (3:56)
4. ARIA PALEA - The great deceiver (5:55)
Total Time: 182:03
¡Aqui!
The yang to Astral Weeks' yin, the brilliant Moondance is every bit as much a classic as its predecessor; Van Morrison's first commercially successful solo effort, it retains the previous album's deeply spiritual thrust but transcends its bleak, cathartic intensity to instead explore themes of renewal and redemption. Light, soulful, and jazzy, Moondance opens with the sweetly nostalgic "And It Stoned Me," the song's pastoral imagery establishing the dominant lyrical motif recurring throughout the album -- virtually every track exults in natural wonder, whether it's the nocturnal magic celebrated by the title cut or the unlimited promise offered in "Brand New Day." At the heart of the record is "Caravan," an incantatory ode to the power of radio; equally stirring is the majestic "Into the Mystic," a song of such elemental beauty and grace as to stand as arguably the quintessential Morrison moment.
The world of pop music was hardly ready for The Velvet Underground's first album when it appeared in the spring of 1967, but while The Velvet Underground and Nico sounded like an open challenge to conventional notions of what rock music could sound like (or what it could discuss), 1968's White Light/White Heat was a no-holds-barred frontal assault on cultural and aesthetic propriety. Recorded without the input of either Nico or Andy Warhol, White Light/White Heat was the purest and rawest document of the key Velvets lineup of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker, capturing the group at their toughest and most abrasive. The album opens with an open and enthusiastic endorsement of amphetamines (startling even from this group of noted drug enthusiasts), and side one continues with an amusing shaggy-dog story set to a slab of lurching mutant R&B ("The Gift"), a perverse variation on an old folktale ("Lady Godiva's Operation"), and the album's sole "pretty" song, the mildly disquieting "Here She Comes Now." While side one was a good bit darker in tone than the Velvets' first album, side two was where they truly threw down the gauntlet with the manic, free-jazz implosion of "I Heard Her Call My Name" (featuring Reed's guitar work at its most gloriously fractured), and the epic noise jam "Sister Ray," 17 minutes of sex, drugs, violence, and other non-wholesome fun with the loudest rock group in the history of Western Civilization as the house band. White Light/White Heat is easily the least accessible of The Velvet Underground's studio albums, but anyone wanting to hear their guitar-mauling tribal frenzy straight with no chaser will love it, and those benighted souls who think of the Velvets as some sort of folk-rock band are advised to crank their stereo up to ten and give side two a spin.
While Van Morrison is, to be kind, an erratic and temperamental live performer, he's in stellar form throughout the double album It's Too Late to Stop Now, a superb concert set that neatly summarizes his career from his days with Them (represented by scorching renditions of "Gloria" and "Here Comes the Night") through 1973's Hard Nose the Highway ("Warm Love," "Wild Children"). In addition to the hits, including "Caravan," "Domino," and "Into the Mystic" (the final line of which gives the album its title), Morrison even pulls out a handful of R&B chestnuts ("Bring It on Home to Me," "Ain't Nothin' You Can Do") before capping off the collection with a show-stopping rendition of Astral Weeks' "Cyprus Avenue." An engaging, warm portrait of the man at the peak of his powers.
