This was the last tape I ever recorded, one that I didn't really regard as having been finished up until I digitised the thing this week. I was mixing the tracks down to a C90 as I recorded them, and about ten minutes into side two, the four-track portastudio I had been borrowing from Eddy Walsh finally gave up the ghost and I couldn't seem to find anyone to fix it. Additionally this was around the time I started seeing Marian, and my life turned to a mire of passive-aggressive shite and mumbo-jumbo, so creative endeavours became difficult to sustain for the next couple of years. Anyway, digging this out in 2017, I notice it's actually just under sixty minutes in length and it sort of sounds finished, so let's just say that it is.
I had drifted away from War Drum, partially to concentrate on LDB (the works of which I might post here at some point, or I might not) and partially to concentrate on writing. Then in 2005 I got back into it. I'd been to Mexico four or five times by this point, and had taken a minidisc recorder with me on a couple of those occasions so as to record environmental sound. So Final Music features quite a lot of that environmental sound rearranged and ordered back in England with, this time, a much stronger influence of Mexican artists such as Tribu, Antonio Zepeda, and Jorge Reyes. This one is much closer to how I always wanted War Drum to sound, and so seems fitting as the last thing I ever recorded. The themes are, as will probably be obvious, mostly related to pre-Hispanic Mexican culture, and Idols Behind the Altars is sung in Nahuatl; and yes, it's my own composition. Most of it is either self-explanatory, or at least not difficult to investigate if you care that much. I seem to recall recording Lonesome Town again mainly because previous versions I'd done had been a bit crap.
Since digitising this one, I haven't had the chance to listen to the files on decent speakers, so I hope the bass has survived the transfer and that my minidisc recordings of tropical rain can be identified as such rather than just as overpowering hiss, but at least on the strength of the tape as it came through my stereo, I've a feeling this might be the best thing I've ever done (which I state in the awareness of much of my stuff having left considerable room for improvement).
Tracks:
1 - Primavera
2 - Nexpiltlan
3 - Fifth Sun
4 - Blood and Sand
5 - Idols Behind the Altars
6 - Sick Day
7 - Arrival of the Rain Baby
8 - Lonesome Town
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Nice. Shades of Black Sheep era Julian Cope on 'Idols Behind the Altars'...
ReplyDeleteInteresting - don't really know him beyond er... that Spacehopper album, I think it was; although he's always been at the back of my mind with a lot of this Mexican stuff, mainly because I've always liked how he's managed to get taken quite seriously with his interest in standing stones etc. Always seemed like there might be hope for me, archaeology-wise.
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