Tilt [CD]

'Tilt' is not the best place to start with Scott Walker- the Walker Brothers 'Best of's' and the 1-4 'Scott' LP's are...However, since 'Til the band comes in' he has been very hit and miss: the bits of 'Nite Flights' which he wrote ('Shutout', 'The Electrician', the title track) were awesome; the rest was dull. The rumoured Brian Eno & David Sylvian collaborations did not appear; 'The Climate of Hunter' did- which was o.k...After the 'Man from Reno' single came this album- which did get in the UK album charts- but was treated with critical derision, as it appeared unlistenable...A housemate of mine was initially disturbed by it- the locust sounds on 'Bouncer see Bouncer' or the moaning at the start of 'The Cockfighter' in that instance. After listening to it many times over three years (preferably in the dark)he now LOVES it!!!...The opening track, 'Farmer in the City' is an ode to the murdered film director/writer Pier Paolo Pasolini and is as good as 'old Scott' tracks such as 'Big Louise' or 'The Old Man's Back Again'...The production is fantastic- the only LP's of late to sound this good are 'Grace' by Jeff Buckley and 'Time Out of Mind' by Bob Dylan (the producers being Andy Wallace & Daniel Lanois)...'Bouncer see Bouncer' & 'Manhattan' are hard to get through but the rest is highly listenable. This record sounds otherwordly and really is ahead of its time...For me 'The Cockfighter' is the best song- parts are as 'industrial' as anything by ATR, Neaubauten or 'Nail' by Foetus (with which it shares dark themes of torture; think of 'Salo')...The songs aren't the overblown doomed romantic of yore- they are the logical progression from the torture dialogue of 'The Electrician'...Saying that, it's a very elliptical album- the lyrics are great but as baffling and exact as Samuel Beckett...One that everyone should own- any record that has Scott sounding so passionate when singing Adolf Eichmann quotations is just fine by me...Just a pity that 'Man from Reno' wasn't used as a reprise, after 'Rosary' (a few tracks date from 92, 'Reno' 90) but I'm only saying that cos it's not on a CD I have...If you like 'Bone Machine' by Tom Waits or 'Rope on Fire' by Morphine- this one's gonna blow you away...If you think it's terrible on first listen, really, you MUST try harder!!!!

Before buying this cd, the only Scott Walker album I had heard was Scott I, which I liked but it didn't bowl me over. Truly this album doesn't sound like anything you have heard before - it doesn't even sound like Scott Walker. It's like something from the 22nd century that has fallen through a worm hole in space to the present. The first time I listened to it I was stunned by its uncompromising sound and arrangements. Farmer in the City is the track that initially stands out most but on repeated listens the beauty of the other tracks gradually emerges. Look at the number of musicians who play on the album and the wide range of musical instruments they play, yet listen to the sparse if not Spartan quality of the songs - this has to be one of the most perfectly arranged and produced albums that I have ever heard. Some of the reactions it induces when you listen to it are almost visceral. Play it in a darkened room by yourself and you'll be fumbling for the light switch in a cold sweat. Some of its otherworldliness derives from the fact that so little of its influences are pop or rock. Modern classical music, particularly Stockhausen and the vocal and operatic work of Benjamin Britten, seemed to have played a part. As one of the other reviewers says, this is definitely not dinner party music or any other kind of background music. It's not catchy, traditional, verse chorus verse music either. Whatever it is, its brilliant. If you bought it, listened to it once and filed it away at the back of your record collection - get it out and play it again, at night when you're alone and to paraphrase Laura Nyro: let it devastate your soul!

You have to have an open mind to sit through this album. It is very disturbing and I would not listen to this on my personal stereo late at night - I'd been too frightened.

Having said that, this is a work of such genius and beauty that, to me, it is like opera. Here is a man who can sing anything - and proves it on this album.

My advice to everyone who wants to know about this album, and wonders if there is anything similar to it, is to ignore all his early albums. I listened earlier to "Boy Child" - the compilation of Scott's music from 67 to 70. It's a magnificent collection from his first six albums, but this is nothing like that - the music on "Boy Child" and "Tilt" could not be further away from each other, they're light years apart.

To have any clue about what to expect musically and lyrically here, you might listen to the last Walker Brothers' album - "Nite Flights" - and Scott's previous release "Climate Of Hunter". Even then, you'll put this on your stereo and listen in wonderment and disbelief.

You can't categorise this music, you can't sing along to it - you just listen to it and marvel at its originality and its brilliance. The musicianship is magnificent and simple and the strings, in all of this albums oddness, stand out beautifully.

A disturbing work of genius. As others have said, you can't accuse of Scott Walker of selling out, of writing to get hit records.

The bad news is that there has been nothing from Scott since this album - 9 years of nothing, although I am ever optimistic that there is another album in him. The further bad news (for other writers, that is) is that most of them could not write material of this massive quality even in their dreams (or their nightmares).
This is immense in the extreme. A strange but glorious masterpiece.