larstangmark
Group: Members
Posts: 1759
Joined: Mar. 2005 |
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Posted: May 14 2010, 09:42 |
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I really like the mix of pop songs and instrumentals, and I think especially FMO works well. Of course the contrast between Family Man and the long (decidedly uncommercial) intro to Orabidoo is baffling, but for me it just heighten the mystique that I feel surrounds the album's genesis.
There's a youtube clip somewhere of Mike and his group performing Mistake on a TV-show. Mike looks geniunely happy and enthusiastic about his newly written pop-song, and I think the poppier stuff he wrote in the early 80s sounds like he had a lot of fun doing it. The same kind of joy that oozes out of mid-period Beatles - it's pop, but it's all over the place (as McCartney described it "...and I don't care if you love me girl, I'm going Helter Skelter").
I can't say that music on the radio in 1982 generally sounded like Family Man (not to say that it couldn't have been played on the radio) but the first thing I thought when I heard Magic Touch and Islands the first time was "this sounds lke something you'd hear on the radio". So I don't think that Islands works in the way that FMO do as an album.
Oh, and on the subject of the Wind Chimes;
I think the Lake, Wind Chimes and Amarok are siblings. The small, bubbly 16th-notes motives. The melodies that are played quietly THEN LOUDER etc. There's also a pastoral, kind of cosy atmosphere to all these pieces that I find sort of off-putting compared to the harsh and aggressive aspects of the earlier instrumentals.
But the Wind Chimes is gorgeous in places. The section where Björn J:sons Linds plays the flute in great, so is the first time the "chanting" comes in, like a digitalized echo of Ommadawn. But I allways think the final five minutes is a yawn, but then I think the same of Amarok.
Oh, and the Wind Chimes part 1. That piece could be anyone.
Lars T
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"There are twelve people in the world, the rest are paste"
Mark E Smith
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IMHO Mike and Jon managed much better on "Shine".
