Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Overlooked classics, 22 Jun 2007
It is always good to see the vastly underrated maverick performer Annette Peacock finally making it onto CD, though I still await 1970's I'm The One to put in an appearance, so this handsome release in 2004 was cause for much celebration. Annette Peacock made two innovative albums for Aura, namely X Dreams and The Perfect Release.
X Dreams came out in 1978, though some of it had been recorded between 1971 and 1974, including the hypnotic opener My Mama Never Taught Me To Cook, which must have been an influence on the young poet Patti Smith, and the ten-minute epic Real And Defined Androgens. Helping out were some big name collaborators who had worked with her elsewhere, people like guitarists Mick Ronson, Chris Spedding, Jim Mullen and Brian Godding and percussionist Bill Bruford, making this a very accessible record despite its idiosyncratic avant jazz nature. At the core of every track is Annette Peacock's charismatically lilting voice and perambulating keyboards, providing the essence and focus of the record. Sometimes her Moog was used to treat her vocals as well as provide spacey instrumentation. The one song she did not write, Don't Be Cruel (one of her homages to Elvis), was also released as a single.
The Perfect Release followed in 1979 and consisted of a number of experimental songs Annette Peacock had laid down at Ray Davies' Konk Studios with borrowed members of the Jeff Beck Group, guitar duties being taken by Robert Ahwei, and culminating in the fifteen-minute Survival, which includes a musical reference to Silent Night. Love Is Out To Lunch was the chosen single, but proved a little too risqué for the likes of Capital Radio, and despite a deliberate attempt by Annette Peacock to move closer to the mainstream for commercial reward, the album remains one of the seventies' forgotten classics.
Added to this pairing are two outtakes from The Perfect Release which were included on The Collection in 1982, but these appeared to have been mastered from an acetate and have some surface noise and distortion.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Try it!, 4 Jun 2007
This disc contains all of X Dreams, all of The Perfect Release and a couple of out takes so it represents excellent value- which has to be a good start! X Dreams has to be AP's most approachable album, if you're from a rock rather than a Jazz background (as I was when I first heard it), Instrumentation and texture something like Ziggy Stardust- but influenced by free jazz and a very distinctive singing voice. Do not think Rock+ Jazz= Jazz Rock and expect Weather Report, think intimate keyboards (piano and electronic) but with more volume than, oh I don't know, Cleo Laine! Don't wait to hear it on the radio, I don't think any song about [...] ever made it into the top ten- and it's probably a bit much for a three minute attention span.
It took me years to find an LP of X Dreams, following rave reviews when it came out- it was worth the persistence- and the whole story of the struggles with record companies and so on is in the sleeve booklet, so even if you had all the music except the outtakes ... which was my excuse.
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