Jul 20, 2011

RhoDeo 1129 Aetix

Hello, todays Aetix is more melodic as usual as three british indie pop-rock bands take center stage. The quality of their music wasn't transformed into big commercial succes, nevertheless they gained deserved respect and today you get the chance to either pick up on them again or enjoy these artists for the first time (what a treat).

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Lloyd Cole and the Commotions were a British pop band that formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1982. Between 1984 and 1989, the band scored four Top 20 albums and five Top 40 singles in the UK. After breaking up in 1989, Cole embarked on a solo career but the band reformed briefly in 2004 to perform a 20th anniversary mini-tour of the UK and Ireland.

The band were formed whilst Cole (who was born in Derbyshire, England) was studying at the University of Glasgow. They signed to Polydor Records; their debut single "Perfect Skin" reaching number 26 in the UK charts in Spring 1984, while the second single "Forest Fire" reached 41. The first album, Rattlesnakes, was released in October 1984. Produced by Paul Hardiman and featuring string arrangements by Anne Dudley, the album peaked at #13 in the UK and was certified Gold for sales over 100,000 copies. NME included in its Top 100 Albums of All-Time list, and the title track was later covered by the American singer Tori Amos. The Welsh band Manic Street Preachers included the album amongst their top ten list.

Due to the insistence of their label[citation needed], the follow-up album, Easy Pieces, was produced by Clive Langer & Alan Winstanley (who had previously produced Madness, The Teardrop Explodes and Elvis Costello and the Attractions). Released in November 1985, the album was a much quicker commercial success than its predecessor (entering the UK album chart at #5 and certified Gold within a month). The singles "Brand New Friend" and "Lost Weekend" were the band's first and only UK Top 20 hits (reaching #19 and #17 respectively).

Two years later, the band released their third and final album, Mainstream. Produced by Ian Stanley (former writer and keyboard-player of Tears for Fears), the album peaked at #9 in the UK and was also certified Gold, but contained only one UK Top 40 single, "Jennifer She Said" (#31).

In 1989, the band decided to split up and released a "best of" compilation, 1984-1989, which was their fourth Top 20 album (UK #14) and fourth Gold certification. Following this, Cole embarked on a solo career with the release of his self-titled album in 1990.

On the first two Commotions albums, Cole was the band's main songwriter (though he co-wrote several songs with various bandmembers). The third album is credited to the band as a whole, though Cole remained the sole lyricist. Particularly notable were Cole's knowingly pretentious lyrics (he was studying Philosophy at the University of Glasgow when the band started) and namedropping the likes of Norman Mailer, Leonard Cohen, Arthur Lee, Grace Kelly, Truman Capote, Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Sinatra, and Eva Marie Saint as well as referring to Sean Penn (somewhat sympathetically) as "Mr. Madonna".


Lloyd Cole and The Commotions - Rattlesnakes (307mb)

01 Perfect Skin 3:10
02 Speedboat 4:32
03 Rattlesnakes 3:22
04 Down On Mission Street 3:43
05 Forest Fire 5:11
06 Charlotte Street 3:48
07 2CV 2:50
08 Four Flights Up 2:33
09 Patience 3:33
10 Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? 3:03
11 Sweetness 2:48
12 Andy's Babies 2:50
13 The Sea And The Sand 3:02
14 You Will Never Be No Good 2:41

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Formed 1979 by Lawrence Hayward who recorded the first single 'Index' on his own and soon dropped his surname in fear of getting associated with another popular Hayward who isn't fully named here out of respect.

The first string of releases through Cherry Red Records featured soundscapes dominated by the playing of classically trained guitarist Maurice Deebank and audible influences by Television and the Velvet Underground. For some reason despite critical acclaim and a #1 indie single ('Primitive Painters') they never made it big but even were denied major support from Wea Records (through Blanco Y Negro). In March of 1982, Cherry Red released Felt's debut full-length album Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty. While the album received little notice commercially, it received high marks from the independent music press. Despite the critical success, the band underwent personnel changes. Tony Race, who had joined the group after it signed with Cherry Red, left Felt and was replaced by Gary Ainge.

The Splendour Of Four sound is mellow, melodic, understated, lovely . . . it's the instrumental passages that work best, not to detract from Lawrence 'Lawrence' Hayward's breathy, (Lou) Reedy vocals and beautifully imagistic lyrics. In March of 1982, Cherry Red released Felt's debut full-length album Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty.In 1984, Maurice Deebank released a full-length solo album titled Inner Thought Zone also released on the Cherry Red label. Deebank, like Gilbert, did not like to be directed by Hayward. Their relationship as Felt group members had always been difficult because of their musical differences. Deebank decided to produce the solo effort to allow an outlet for some of the music he was forced to hold back while with Felt

Ignite the Seven Cannons was the follow-up LP to "Primitive Painters." The full-length LP was released in September of 1985. Guthrie produced the album with the 4AD formula, and The Cocteau Twins were at the controls. Afterwards, Deebank left the group, but Hayward found another skilled musician to replace him. Martin Duffy had filled in on keyboards for the album and joined Felt full time in 1985. While Felt played a few shows in support of Ignite the Seven Cannons, Cherry Red was busy releasing a compilation album. Felt's next album, Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death, was issued in September of 1986 on the Creation label. Duffy's organ added a '60s sound that worked well with Hayward's songs.

Forever Breathes The Lonely Wordfound Hayward back at writing lyrics and crafting some of his best Felt songs. The album was released in fall 86 on the Creation label. The song "All the People I Like Are Those That Are Dead" became a favorite on college radio and is now considered a classic to Felt fans. Felt followed with two more LPs in 1988 on the Creation label: The Pictorial Jackson Review released in March, and Train Above The City in July. Felt's swan song was the full length LP Me and a Monkey on the Moon released in November of 1989 on the El label. Hayward had to move to Mike Always' El label because Creation was not able to release the album before Hayward's self-imposed deadline of ten years, ten albums.

During the 80's Felt released ten albums & ten singles for the Cherry Red, Creation & el labels. For the first time ever, this compilation chosen by enigmatic frontman Lawrence, features the highlights of Felt's career on all three labels & proves they were the decades formative underground challengers. The album includes the indie hit singles 'Trails of Colour Dissolve', 'Penelope Tree', 'Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow', 'Primitive Painters', 'Ballad of the Band', 'Final Resting of the Ark' & 'Space Blues'.


Felt - Stains on a Decade (276mb)

01 Something Sends Me To Sleep 2:53
02 Trails Of Colour Dissolve 3:07
03 Penelope Tree 2:58
04 Sunlight Bathed The Golden Glow 3:14
05 Fortune 3:32
06 Dismantled King Is Off The Throne 2:47
07 Primitive Painters 5:59
08 Ballad Of The Band 2:47
09 I Didn't Mean To Hurt You 2:33
10 I Will Die With My Head In Flames 1:34
11 Sandman's On The Rise Again 1:49
12 The Final Resting Of The Ark 2:39
13 There's No Such Thing As Victory 2:19
14 Be Still 3:15
15 Space Blues 2:23

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Prefab Sprout was formed in Newcastle, England, in 1977 by McAloon (who sings and plays guitar and piano) and his bass-playing younger brother Martin. In the group's early days, McAloon spun several fanciful tales about the origin of their odd name (one favorite was that the young McAloon had misheard the line "hotter than a pepper sprout" in Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood's "Jackson"), but the prosaic truth is that an adolescent McAloon had devised the meaningless name in homage to the longwinded and equally silly band names of his late-'60s/early-'70s youth. Drafting an early fan, Wendy Smith, into the lineup to sing helium-register backing vocals, the trio released their first single, "Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone)," on their own Candle label in July 1982.

Prefab Sprout's first album, Swoon, was released in March 1984. Containing neither of the first two singles (but leading off with the delightful "Don't Sing," their third), Swoon is in retrospect a surprisingly brittle record, full of difficult songs that take unexpected left turns and have all but impenetrable lyrics. Shortly after Swoon's release, drummer Neil Conti joined the group, and in a rather brilliant move, Thomas Dolby was tapped to produce the second Prefab Sprout album, 1985's Steve McQueen (retitled Two Wheels Good in the U.S. due to litigation from the late actor's estate). Dolby smoothes out the kinks a bit, and his keyboards help enrich the album's sound; it also helps that the songs are much better, lyrically opaque but not impenetrable and melodically satisfying.

Prefab Sprout returned to the studio without Dolby in the summer of 1985 and quickly recorded an album's worth of material that was initially meant to be released in a limited edition as a tour souvenir. However, several months after Steve McQueen was released, its song "When Love Breaks Down" became a hit, and CBS feared a new album would hurt its predecessor's sales, so the project was shelved. The "proper" follow-up to Steve McQueen was 1988's From Langley Park to Memphis. Although it was their biggest hit, thanks to the massive U.K. chart success of "The King of Rock and Roll". In 1990, Jordan: The Comeback, again produced by Thomas Dolby, was nominated for a BRIT Award. Though the music was more accessible than their earlier material, the lyrics and subject matter remained characteristically oblique and suggestive.

Early in the nineties McAloon alluded in interviews to several albums-worth of songs that he had written, amongst others, concept albums based on the life of Michael Jackson (Behind the Veil), the history of the world (Earth: The Story So Far) and Zorro the Fox about a fictional superhero. Their greatest hits, Life of Surprises: The Best of Prefab Sprout, gave them their biggest U.S. hit, "If You Don't Love Me" (92) Prefab Sprout released Andromeda Heights in the UK in 1997, while a short UK tour followed in 2000. This tour, and the subsequent album, did not feature Wendy Smith, who by this time had reportedly left the band, to focus on her motherhood. By now Prefab Sprout consisted of the McAloon Brothers they released The Gunman and Other Stories a concept album themed on the American West in 2001. After being diagnosed with a medical disorder which impaired his vision Paddy McAloon released the album I Trawl The Megahertz under his own name in 2003 on the EMI Liberty label. As of 2006, McAloon had suffered another setback: his hearing had deteriorated, reportedly due to Ménière's disease. In early 2007 a remastered Steve McQueen was released in a 2 CD package, containing new versions of eight of the songs from the original album, in radically different arrangements performed by McAloon on acoustic guitar.

From Langley Park to Memphis is Prefab Sprout's third album, and was released in March 1988. The album reached number five in the UK Albums Chart, the highest position for any studio generated album recorded by the band. Five singles were released to promote the album; in order of release these were "Cars & Girls", "The King of Rock 'N' Roll", "Hey Manhattan!", "Nightingales" and "The Golden Calf".


Prefab Sprout – From Langley Park To Memphis (307mb)

01 The King Of Rock 'N' Roll 4:22
02 Cars And Girls 4:25
03 I Remember That 4:13
04 Enchanted 3:47
05 Nightingales 5:53
06 Hey Manhattan! 4:45
07 Knock On Wood 4:16
08 The Golden Calf 5:06
09 Nancy (Let Your Hair Down For Me) 4:02
10 The Venus Of The Soup Kitchen 4:29


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elsewhere on this blog

Felt - The Splendour Of Four ( 84 ^ 76mb)

Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen (85 ^ 99mb)

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would really appreciate a re-up of Felt's "Stains On A Decade" ...! Thanks.

Anonymous said...

a re-up of prefab sprout would be really appreciated. thnx