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Track Listings
| 1. Turning The Mind |
| 2. I Dream Of Crystal |
| 3. Let Go Of The Fear |
| 4. Valium In The Sunshine |
| 5. Papercuts |
| 6. Love Will Come |
| 7. Everything Is Shattering |
| 8. Nothing |
| 9. The Note (These Voices) |
| 10. Chemeleon |
| 11. Die Happy, Die Smiling |
| 12. Without You |
Product Description
Review
It wasn’t a dull record – indeed, in the spiralling dream-pop of You Don’t Know Her Name it boasted one of 2007’s most purely exhilarating musical rushes – but Chapman’s reedy monotone and ditchwater lyrics were by far and away the least appealing part. Two years on and he’s been quite free in talking up successor Turning the Mind as a better, more personal album; one that ups the lyrical game as it charts his journey from narcotic confusion to lovely, lovely sobriety.
It is, unfortunately, a similarly well-observed phenomena is that the only thing more tedious than people on drugs is people who used to be on drugs talking about how they’re not on drugs anymore. While kicking the narcotics may not be actively to blame for the failings of Chapman’s second album, the fact is that the meatier subject matter hasn’t helped him as a performer, and has indeed diminished the sense of ebullient lift his best songs require.
Presumably the numbness of his delivery on single I Dream of Crystal is meant to simulate his emotional state during the height of his abuse, but really, a spot of actual emotion on lines like “and I will screw it up, I’m used to that” could have done the song wonders. Portentously declaimed spoken-word statements like “release is a cocaine fury” (on Let Go of the Fear) are not really the answer, either.
It’s a shame, because he’s still bashing out some fearsome pop songs – witness the liquid analogue cascade of Everything is Shattering and the glossily strutting lattices of Die Happy, Die Smiling. The problem is that he’s still yet to convince that he should be the one to sing them. --Andrzej Lukowski
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CD Description
Talking about the album, Maps mastermind James Chapman explains; "Turning The Mind is essentially an album which explores themes related to the human mind and the way certain stimuli, particularly chemical, can affect the it in different ways. The tracks for this album never seemed to stop flowing from the day I began working on them, it is a true statement of Maps' music at this precise moment".
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Customer Reviews
Well worth the money, I dream of crystal is a fantastic tune. One of my all time favorites.
Maybe the first album attracted to many musical snobs, hence the reviews of this one. I think I have heard more tracks from this album on TV and films than i did the first one.
James C has done a great job on this and I cannot wait for the next one, Due this year according to twitter. Just hope he tours more this time.
'We Can Create' - the previous album - contains many beautiful hymns to 'chemical enhancement' - 'Liquid Sugar' for one. 'Turning The Mind' is the dark side, the come-down side, the 'darkest night of the soul', caught in a 'life(death)style' which is killing you.
Reading between the lines (sic) I think much of this album is somehow autobiographical. And I don't think the lyrics are unimaginative. I think they capture very clearly in their simplicity a terrible psychological state. Of emptiness, of self-loathing, of trying to find peace and direction and movement onwards/upwards. Desperately sad really.
'Turning The Mind' seems to be a term for 'going insane'. And there is that sense of ennui, of disassociation, of losing it, in all of the songs. It's a darker trip than previously, that's for sure.
The music therefore - to use clinical language - becomes an effective tool in outlining these themes/psychological descriptions... 'Everything Is Shattering' is like one of the best New Order songs you've never heard - 'born for nothing, to abyss/and nothing worth this wasted wish'.
Maybe I have got it all wrong, and have misunderstood the concepts? - but it's easy to see that this isn't just your typical 'shoegazing' set. I admire James Chapman for his great talent, his way of creating something intensely beautiful and immediate. But I think this is an album that isn't going to 'hit' you straight away.
I've been listening to it all day now and I can only say that there is much to value and love here. It is certainly deeply, heartbreakingly sad, shot through with a palpable sense of loss and regret; it is genuinely disturbing in places; and bloody powerful. Laughter in hell.
Turning The Mind. His musical cohorts have helped him
to realise and release the simple inner power of the... Read more
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