Abstract, avant-garde art rock. Scott Walker was a huge name to the Brits in the 60s and 70s when he released a string of commercially successful solo albums and works as a part of the country pop trio, Walker Brothers. He became a recluse, started wearing trucker hats, and since the 80s, he’s released one weird album, further and further down into the experimental abyss, each decade. Really hard to describe the music. Intense, near-operatic vocals. Plays a lot with loud/soft dynamic. Sounds like Jesus leading you into the slaughter room of a meat packing factory. This one reflects a more ADD cut/paste style than the last few. Songs about imperial lust, impeccable detail to neckties, notebook after notebook of graphic images and proper English flourishes. Truly uncompromising vision. Post-structural songs with a stream-of-consciousness feel. Careful with the FCCs/borderline FCCs.

*1. Pounding sequenced thud with screeching static waves. Heavy and frenetic. Beware of the repetition of “plucking.”(4:06)
2. Suite that quickly jumps between styles. Bare open into squeaking melodic pound, shouting over horror keyboards, harpsichord, insect-like percussion plucking, heavy, cymbal-led drums, sharpening of knives. (10:11)
3. Glitchy electronic loops, driving percussion beats. “hate is not alone,” “pain is not alone.”(4:46)
4. FCCs. Another suite. Naked vocals build to ugly plods, bendy sirens, great lyrics. Whoa-- Walker screams! Found sounds, droney layers. Serious oedipal overtones? Late intense blaring thuds. It’s all held together by a 3-beat rhythmic motif. Frightening. (21:42)
*5. Twisty hand-clapped plod, blaring pseudo horns/keyboards, digital drones. (9:41)
6. Huge clang and spaced out, flickering solitude with vocal ladder climbs. Slow, foreboding. (6:47)
*7. Knives as percussion and unnerving strings. Walker babbles about the Bible. (5:39)
8. Really weird one. Dribbling marbles or something, and old, breathing, playful, repetitious, madman vocals. (2:27)
9. Relatively straightforward percussion, closest thing to a “song.” Slow, simple distorted guitar and slow burn. (7:45)