August 04, 1995  No. 177

Roch On Music
By Roch Parisien

RED HOUSE PAINTERS
Ocean Beach                     ***1/2
(4AD)

TINDERSTICKS
The Second Album              ***1/2
(This Way Up)

Abandon all hope ye who enter the universe of either San
Francisco's Red House Painters or London's Tindersticks. 
Soulmates separated only by a large body of water, both groups
steep their art in emotions so intrinsically bleak and
remorseful that you have to (even if begrudgingly) admire the
purity of the pain.

Working from a quiet, hypnotic base of acoustic guitars and
piano, both are unusually skilled at finding the dark cloud in
every silver lining.  Electric instrumentation, keyboard
washes, sorrowful cellos, violas, french horn, and other
sundry strings and horns stain the canvas in hues called for
by the particular composition.

_Ocean Beach_ finds Red House Painters less layered and more
traditionally "song"-oriented than previous outings.  Heck,
"Summer Dress" even frames songwriter Mark Kozelek in a
relatively rosy, cherishing state of mind: "Summer dress,
separates you from the rest.../Says a prayer as she's kissed,
by ocean mist/Takes herself to the sand, and dreams..." 
Coupled with one of the group's most stately melodies and a
stirring cello signature, it's a key reflective moment.  But
the corrosive acid returns soon upon; case in point, the
disc's closing stiletto stab "Drop":  "I'd like to come home
to see you/And to catch your sickness by the bedside/But then
you'd know how much I really need you.../But my hate for
you/makes my feelings all together...drop."

Tindersticks takes a slightly more uncentered, psychedelic
folk-rock approach.  For those who might recall Tom Rapp's
 60s "acid folk" group Pearls Before Swine, this is their '90s
spiritual reincarnation.  The group's signature is Stuart
Staples' odd, unconventional vocals - he sings like Nick Cave
with a mouthful of marbles, choking on his introspective
lyrics like a victim suffering from shock, every syllable
requiring extreme effort to enounce.

_The Second Album_'s key piece of anguished beauty - a 
string-drenched duet with Carla Torgerson (of The Walkabouts) 
called "Travelling Light" - invokes the spirit of  Nancy Sinatra/Lee
Hazelwood classic "Some Velvet Morning".  "Tiny Tears" offers
a heartbreaker chorus, bathos bathed in strings and leavened
by piercing, haunted-house keyboards.  "Talk To Me" ups the
tension level dramatically with swelling, discordant bursts of
instrumentation.

For those who are determined that happiness will always be
their elusive butterfly, these two discs are your soundtrack.
There's a certain kind of dark, fascinating beauty to be found
in such abject defeat.  Each group, in its own fashion,
captures lepidoptera in its net, studies in rapt fascination
then, having concluded its qualities to be unfathomable,
proceeds to sorrowfully pull off the wings.

SCOTT WALKER
Tilt                                  ****1/2
(Fontana)

Despite their abilities, not even Tindersticks or Red House
Painters can hold a black candle, when it comes to defining
pure mournful sadness, to Scott Walker's wondrous
resurrection. _Tilt_ weaves a spell that dissipates the
helpless, paralysing languor that is the Achilles heel of both
_Ocean Beach_ and _The Second Album_.

Walker's history is as enigmatic as this recording.  Born
Scott Engel, he led British Invasion trio The Walker Brothers
(none were actually British, brothers, or named Walker)
through such deep-throated  60s hits as "The Sun Ain't Gonna
Shine Anymore" before embarking on an influential solo career
that saw him dubbed the "British Jacques Brel".  His best late
 60s/early  70s work, characterized by "crooner" orchestration
that often took a deceptively experimental turn, lyrics that
laid bare the very souls of his protagonists, and an
unparalleled, seductively sonorous, tragedy-laden voice, was a
major influence on David Bowie and such later post-punk alumni
as Soft Cell's Mark Almond and The Teardrop Explodes Julian
Cope.

The mysterious recluse has surfaced only rarely in intervening
decades, first in 1978 for Walker Brothers reunion album _Nite
Flights_, then in 1983 for solo album _Climate Of Hunter_ - a
time when a new wave of interest in his work was created by
the release of a Cope-compiled anthology subtitled (in typical
Cope hyperbole) _The Godlike Genius Of Scott Walker_.

Another decade-plus passes until, out of nowhere, comes the
aptly-titled _Tilt_, a recording unlike anything Walker has
ever produced and, for that matter, unlike anything else even
contemplated on the contemporary music spectrum.  Available to
date only as a British import, the disc is a must-find for the
adventurous seeking new musical horizons.

_Tilt_ often eschews the standard framework and trappings of
rock and pop.  The work is almost classical and operatic in
scope, in an avant guard way that should neither sound formal
and stuffy to those weaned on popular music, or invoke some
gunky, half-baked "fusion" fashion.  From the wide palette of
string and woodwind sections, church celeste and organs,
concertinas and flutes, burst startling explosions of
industrial, electronic mayhem, perhaps presaging the
forthcoming collaboration between David Bowie and Nine Inch
Nails frontman Trent Reznor.  "Bouncer See Bouncer" builds
anxious paranoia with ominous heartbeat percussion and eerie
phased tinkling that keeps you looking over your shoulder.

_Tilt_'s lyrics are often first person stream-of-consciousness, 
an engrossing marriage of abstract imagery and
compelling stories.  "Farmer In The City", for instance, makes
its tragic point much more effectively via a haunting,
chanting chorus of "Do I hear 21, 21, 21/I'll give you 21, 21,
21..." than it could through more conventional narrative.

On most tracks, Walker sings in an other-worldly quasi-falsetto 
that seems to serve as the disc's thematic linkage. 
I would have loved to hear him unleash his legendary basso
profundo more frequently...perhaps those skills are behind
him, although you do get a taste of it on the shifting, multi-hued 
"Bolivia".  

Despite its inherent darkness, there is  a zest, a gleam in
the eye, a vibrant defiance of conventionality expressed here. 
Tilt is a new bible for all who believe that to truly know
exultant joy, you must first experience the depths of raw,
rubbing despair.

Copyright 1995 Rocon Communications - All rights reserved