Via Idolator, Scott Walker’s contribution to an upcoming 4AD compilation of songs thematically linked by the ten plagues. For those of you keeping track, said plagues would be: the Nile turning to blood, frogs, lice, flies, disease of livestock, boils, hailstorms, locusts, darkness, and finally, the death of the firstborn. Looks like Scott drew my personal fave — darkness.
I used to think of Scott as a slightly cracked purveyor of literate, carnivalesque, sometimes moody fantasy tunes in the vein of Leonard Cohen, maybe, or Jacques Brel, but lately his output has just been getting darker and darker:
…obtuse, sepulchral music that – believe it or not – matches the ambient extremity of Aphex Twin and the queasy claustrophobia of Tricky. Once an expansive singer, Walker now sings with a mournful choke about millennial dread and horror at human brutality.
from Rolling Stone’s review of Tilt (1995), and that was two albums ago!
This plague song though — Seriously!!! Dark!!! I’m talking György Ligeti, chorus-of-the-damned style here.
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:20 pm
Creepy though it be, that song sounds like a veritable kegger compared to The Drift.
December 4th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Damnit, just recently I was reading a review of someone, and they were compared to Scott Walker. I had never heard of him, so I looked him up and decided that I should probably check him out. Now you’re talking about him too! Okay, now I really have to track some down.
December 5th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Would you believe that I went out the day after writing that comment and found The Drift used at Other Music?