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Review
"Forget Mark Ronson, this is the man who should produce the next Amy Winehouse album. He's like the troubled, runaway son Shirley Bassey and Scott Walker never had." - NME 8/10 --New Musical Express
"He is at the absolute height of his powers on Back to the Cat. It is among the best records of 2008 and is singular in its achievement" All Music Guide 4.5/5 --All Music Guide
"His finest album yet, stirring everything he's ever learned during an eclectic 30-year career into an almighty, frontier-less and beautifully strange brew. John Barry to Big Band Bowie." - Uncut 4/5 --Uncut Magazine
"He is at the absolute height of his powers on Back to the Cat. It is among the best records of 2008 and is singular in its achievement" All Music Guide 4.5/5 --All Music Guide
"His finest album yet, stirring everything he's ever learned during an eclectic 30-year career into an almighty, frontier-less and beautifully strange brew. John Barry to Big Band Bowie." - Uncut 4/5 --Uncut Magazine
Album Description
Premiered in November 2007 during a pair of sold-out events at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Barry Adamson is finally ready to unveil his latest creation, Back To The Cat, upon the wider world. The album, his 7th studio release, finds Adamson in a furious focus, fully embracing a pop sensibility and fusing it with dark, swinging blues, soul, funk, out-jazz and filmic takes.
Never one to stay in one place sonically, the ever forward thinking Adamson has taken his next step forth which conversely has taken him to a place he's never been - the past. With over 30 years of pushing the boundaries in the fields of sonic-art, literature and motion picture sound-tracking, Adamson finds himself in a fantasy land where Duke Ellington is actually a Duke, Miles Davis is getting hi-tech with Betty and the burgeoning rock `n' roll scene is finally starting to cut some quite sharp teeth.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I've been an avid follower of Adamson since his 1996 album "Oedipus Schmoedipus", in my opinion his grand masterpiece. And although subsequent efforts have been patchy and even in the case of "Stranger On The Sofa" even underwhelming, "Back To The Cat" sees a return to form...of sorts.
On listening, you're happy to hear Adamson's trademarks - his John Barry-like influence, the jazzy riffs and in the case of the first track "The Beaten Side of Town", a hark back to early songs such as his cover version of "The Man With The Golden Arm". But this is also the album's weakness. Whereas with "Oedipus Schmoedipus" and his excellent follow-up album "As Above So Below", Adamson managed the superb trick of sounding both retro and modern, the bulk of BTTC only manages to sound like pastiche. From "Oedipus" to the occasionally-great 2001 album "King of Nothing Hill", his vocals (always a moot point) were layered over imaginitive musicianship but BTTC only emphasises his lack of range, even more so than on "Stranger On The Sofa" and it's sad that he's forsaken the rich baritones of his spoken voice, so thick that it made him the new Barry White.
It would be mean to say that the album doesn't have its moments. My favourites - "Shadow of Death Hotel", "Flight" and "Psycho Sexual" hint at Adamson's mischevious, sinister side but these come in between tracks you feel you've heard before on previous albums and done better.
If you're an Adamson completist - like me - it's worth buying this album. But for others, then I couldn't recommend "Oedipus" and "As Above So Below" highly enough - brilliantly eclectic, inventive and distinctive albums by a man at his absolute creative peak, music that thrills you, scares you while making you smile and laugh in wonder.
On listening, you're happy to hear Adamson's trademarks - his John Barry-like influence, the jazzy riffs and in the case of the first track "The Beaten Side of Town", a hark back to early songs such as his cover version of "The Man With The Golden Arm". But this is also the album's weakness. Whereas with "Oedipus Schmoedipus" and his excellent follow-up album "As Above So Below", Adamson managed the superb trick of sounding both retro and modern, the bulk of BTTC only manages to sound like pastiche. From "Oedipus" to the occasionally-great 2001 album "King of Nothing Hill", his vocals (always a moot point) were layered over imaginitive musicianship but BTTC only emphasises his lack of range, even more so than on "Stranger On The Sofa" and it's sad that he's forsaken the rich baritones of his spoken voice, so thick that it made him the new Barry White.
It would be mean to say that the album doesn't have its moments. My favourites - "Shadow of Death Hotel", "Flight" and "Psycho Sexual" hint at Adamson's mischevious, sinister side but these come in between tracks you feel you've heard before on previous albums and done better.
If you're an Adamson completist - like me - it's worth buying this album. But for others, then I couldn't recommend "Oedipus" and "As Above So Below" highly enough - brilliantly eclectic, inventive and distinctive albums by a man at his absolute creative peak, music that thrills you, scares you while making you smile and laugh in wonder.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
My head was span aroudn by this release. So much so that I've been thinking about how to review it for 2 weeks now. I feel this man says it better than I ever could. Courtesy of Thomas Jurek at the All Music Guide:
"The brooding synth and drum kit, the slow, West Side Story-esque finger pops, and the snaky little oboe-like phrase that commence "The Beaten Side of Town" also introduce its narrator: some back alley cross between the young hipster Scott Walker doing his best Jacques Brel doing his best Frank Sinatra singing a tune written by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, arranged by Nelson Riddle. It's a scene set in a smoky, back alley blind pig written by Colin MacInnes if he were really Hubert Selby, Jr. Uh huh. Now we're rolling. What's so utterly beguiling about this cut is that despite Adamson's obvious attempt to deliver that kind of swinger's cool in the heart of darkness as a vocalist, there isn't a thing that reeks of artificiality or artifice. It's got a wallop both musically and lyrically, especially when the reverbed guitars and the horns erupt in the bridge, or when a trumpet and some vibes are laid in the cut with only a snare, hi hat, and walking upright bass to accompany them. His last words, after a completely raucous jazzed up blues that celebrates the all the perceived lowlifes in an urban locale are: "The beaten side of town/And I'm goin down." It's a low thrum, almost a growl, as the keeper of the netherworld opens the gates to the real nightlife for the journey ahead. Adamson's protagonist is going ahead whether you accompany him or not. He knows the way, after all, even if he can't predict the outcome. But after this entrance, how can you help it?"
and then:
"The acid-drenched Serge Gainsbourg-esque trippy jazz of "Psycho_Sexual" brings the horror of a breaking, bleary, gray day after the end of a night of singular excess right to the narrator's doorstep. It also signals the end of our orgiastic musical journey with Adamson through his aural cinema of obsessive archetypes ranging from guttersnipe hustlers, spies, junkies, willfully brutal and needy sexual predators and their victims to musical heroes too numerous to mention. It is presented with wry and delightfully steamy nastiness to be sure. But make no mistake, this is a truly mind-blowing work of musical sophistication. And Adamson is a startlingly gifted composer who is also a brilliant storyteller in sound, word, texture, and mythology both arcane and contemporary. He is at the absolute height of his powers on Back to the Cat. It is among the best records of 2008 and is singular in its achievement."
"The brooding synth and drum kit, the slow, West Side Story-esque finger pops, and the snaky little oboe-like phrase that commence "The Beaten Side of Town" also introduce its narrator: some back alley cross between the young hipster Scott Walker doing his best Jacques Brel doing his best Frank Sinatra singing a tune written by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, arranged by Nelson Riddle. It's a scene set in a smoky, back alley blind pig written by Colin MacInnes if he were really Hubert Selby, Jr. Uh huh. Now we're rolling. What's so utterly beguiling about this cut is that despite Adamson's obvious attempt to deliver that kind of swinger's cool in the heart of darkness as a vocalist, there isn't a thing that reeks of artificiality or artifice. It's got a wallop both musically and lyrically, especially when the reverbed guitars and the horns erupt in the bridge, or when a trumpet and some vibes are laid in the cut with only a snare, hi hat, and walking upright bass to accompany them. His last words, after a completely raucous jazzed up blues that celebrates the all the perceived lowlifes in an urban locale are: "The beaten side of town/And I'm goin down." It's a low thrum, almost a growl, as the keeper of the netherworld opens the gates to the real nightlife for the journey ahead. Adamson's protagonist is going ahead whether you accompany him or not. He knows the way, after all, even if he can't predict the outcome. But after this entrance, how can you help it?"
and then:
"The acid-drenched Serge Gainsbourg-esque trippy jazz of "Psycho_Sexual" brings the horror of a breaking, bleary, gray day after the end of a night of singular excess right to the narrator's doorstep. It also signals the end of our orgiastic musical journey with Adamson through his aural cinema of obsessive archetypes ranging from guttersnipe hustlers, spies, junkies, willfully brutal and needy sexual predators and their victims to musical heroes too numerous to mention. It is presented with wry and delightfully steamy nastiness to be sure. But make no mistake, this is a truly mind-blowing work of musical sophistication. And Adamson is a startlingly gifted composer who is also a brilliant storyteller in sound, word, texture, and mythology both arcane and contemporary. He is at the absolute height of his powers on Back to the Cat. It is among the best records of 2008 and is singular in its achievement."
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Similar to Stranger on the Sofa with the accompaniment but at least here he stretches those nodes insteado knocking out the bouncy tunes on the first. Then its back to putting away the washing and stacking up in the plates in suburbia. This sees him pumping the jazz inflections on the first track but veering too near Madness without the charisma to make it work. Quite why he wants to create the music for breakfast commercials is never made clear. His strengths lay in brooding horror not in white plastic veneer. The vocals are not Barry White but a bubbling froth on top of a Cappucino. They lack the gravitas of Serge Gainsbourg or the crackle of Lottie Lenya. Waste of talented musician as it neither oozes sex, broods or apsires to the gods.
It finally lets its groove out of the box when it becomes instrumental.
The producer needs to let him know that singing is not his forte, his strength arises from his musical imagination, populated with 60's sci fi, black groove, soul murder, celine cynicism and the childhood events from the past brought into a moderne tour de force. His early work is without peer this just jostles along with a whole parade of lesser types
It finally lets its groove out of the box when it becomes instrumental.
The producer needs to let him know that singing is not his forte, his strength arises from his musical imagination, populated with 60's sci fi, black groove, soul murder, celine cynicism and the childhood events from the past brought into a moderne tour de force. His early work is without peer this just jostles along with a whole parade of lesser types
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