Possibly My Favourite Options

[geordiegav]

For me grown up Xtc have released two gilt edge albums that I find difficult to chose between.
Apple Venus and Nonsuch are just crammed from outer edge to centre disc with glorious music.

If songwriting and recording are crafts here is the work of master craftsmen from the medieval age.

What an album to leave us with to prop up the back catalogue on the shelf for the seven year strike after the downing of plectrums and the Virgin workhouse walkout Nonsuch was....boy what a quality release but I think that's maybe the reason that Apple Venus is so special THE WAIT!!

Maybe not,maybe it's because it's such an emotional record...Has Andy ever sung or written songs as personal as this? I know there's deep stuff on Wasp Star but it feels a bit like other Xtc albums to me while Apple Venus just seems to be devoid of that lunatic scribble that makes Xtc so Xtc but on this it's erased by emotional openness from Andy and a sense of middle aged contentment by Colin.

Gotta love Andy he's such a funny fucker,great imagination,wicked wit and the filthiest mind are always all over every Xtc album but I don't think he has ever swung his balls on plastic quite like he shows them on some of these songs..,amazing stuff from the bloop of a giants teardrop to that fucking amazing outro of The Last Balloon...ok in a perfect world I'd swap I'd like That for Stupidly Happy but hey ho!

Great Story Jeff I was there for a few minutes with you....

In the UK our first bit of Apple Venus was on a free new music cd giving with one of those crappy music magazines Uncut,Q or something...and it was River of Orchids....couldn't wait to hear my first new Xtc recording for 7 years and you know what when I first heard the intro it reminded me of Siouxsie and the Banshees cover of Helter Skelter from their first album...not what I was expecting from a new Xtc song...fear not within a minute I was happily in a new Xtc trance....and did it get a few repeats that day...what a track River of Orchids is....never thought it would be an opening track on the album but after listening to the full album what else could it be?

The spotty young kid in the beat up bumpers in me ALWAYS goes for White Music but Apple Venus is darn good for the middle aged Xtc man in ....oh fuck I'm still wearing beat up converse bumpers!

[donavan]

5.1



HD 3D 5.1 XTC

This post has been edited by donavan: Jul 31 2011, 08:29 AM

[Chrestus]

I can appreciate the love that "River Of Orchids" and "Easter Theatre" always get in these discussions, they seem to be the twin center pieces of the album. "Easter Theatre" is a very well-crafted piece and "River" is a fun sing-a-long, with its mouthful of verse. They both explore new areas for the band. The song on the album that's always stood out for me is "Harvest Festival", with "THe Last Balloon" a close second. When the drums, bass and orch kick in in "Harvest Festival" - "that longing look you gave me..." - yeah, the wistfulness of the whole thing is really captured well. And my fave line from the whole album - "See that you two got married and I wish you well" - I love the positive acceptance by the narrator there, yet there's an "unbearable lightness" to all of it that makes it all feel so poignant and bittersweet. It's emminently relatable.

What is it about XTC albums that you have to listen to them 3 or 4 times before they really begin to reveal thier full weight? Didn't fully appreciate this one at first, but have since grown happily into it. "Frivolous Tonight" I loved at first blush, hated "Fruit Nut". But "Fruit Nut" finally did win me over, there's a very subtle genius going on behind that one.

[Chrestus]

Something that stands out with Andy's songs, stands out because you hardly see it elsewhere these days, is his (thier) ability to craft a song experience that slowly builds into something dramatic or colourful. "The Last Ballon" (and "Stupidly Happy" also) is a prime example. Starts off kind of dirge-like and it appears to be rather repititious through the first and second verses. Yet...the instrumentation starts to fill out with each repitition and the song is finally fully realized with the final stanza of "You should drop us all..." and that lovely meloncholy trumpet coda.

"You should drop us all..."

That line carries so much weight to it. It really is incredibly sad to me that someone would have to write that, and that we all instantly get it when the singer goes there. It's one of the saddest and most prophetic lines in the whole catalogue. Andy was never one to shy away from the darkest elements of the human story and this line always makes me want to choke up. I would be in tears writing a line like that.

Something else interesting about that, too:
Andy is an athiest, and yet...

He has so many allusions to God or a God-like figure or Judaeo-Christian culture in his work. Not implying that Andy is a closted believer, not in the slightest. But I do appreciate his willingness to go there for the sake of a point.

"Scissor Man"
"Will you tell them how a child to the virgin came..." from "The Everday Story Of Smalltown"
"Reign of blows has washed away the corpse of Abel, Cain is now the king in every Babel" from "Reign Of Blows"
"You should drop us all..." WHO should drop us all?

Still, I like that he'll go there. All these examples are very powerful moments in those songs.

[Chrestus]

I'm sorry!

"And how a child to the virgin came..." - That's from "This World Over", isn't it? "The Everyday Story Of Smalltown"? Where did that come from?

[Chrestus]

Also..."Travels In Nihilon" - "We've seen...no Jesus come and gone..."

I'll grant that many of these are ironic statements within the songs. Still, Andy returns to this trough time and time again. To good effect.

[Jeff Truzzi]

In the interest of full disclosure, none of the outstanding songs Chrestus quoted in the above three posts happen to be ON "Apple Venus."

Yes, alcohol was involved.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Chrestus]

"The Last Balloon" is on AV.

I'm like Dr. Johnny Fever. Alcohol actually increases my mental powers.

[simpleton01]

That was absolutely one of the best moments of my life, right up there with the best sex I've ever had and hearing XTC for the first time with Simp.

Just a slight clarification, Dear Readers. The above events were completely unrelated. Completely. Unrelated.

Thank you.

[rusinurbe]

Andy i would jump at once once if a 5.1 of WSAV were released in 5.1 Hoping that all can agree. Someone like Steven Wilson mixing it would be absolutly tops he is probably the best at the moment, not that you of course would not do a a splendid job it being your babay.

[Andy Partridge]

I am more than willing to get AV/WS mixed in 5.1................................................

[Spastic Minnow]

Putting the album on and hearing River of Orchids for the first time in my tiny little car is one of my best music memories, I left the engine off and let the goose pimples cover my entire body, it really was an ecstatic reaction. The initial reaction really lasted for ages, I loved it. I've never had that experience with another XTC album- the immediate love and compulsion to keep it on repeat, every other album the appreciation had to grow on me in some way.

My reaction to Wasp Star was a bit different, the first reaction was, of course, very good, but I was very aware that I wasn't getting the thrill I did from AV.

The funny thing is how this perception has switched so much.
AV started feeling old, especially the grand songs like Greenman and Knights in Shining Karma, it started to come off as a little bombastic and though I do enjoy listening to the album it doesn't inspire multiple plays anymore. Instead I feel like moving on to Wasp Star, which now always demands repeat listens, I go through it once and immediately go back to favorite tracks to hear again.

But if I were to rate all the albums, neither makes the very top spots... actually, we haven't done that in a long time... off to the Everything Else section.

[donavan]

I would have preferred this as the comeback/last album. I think it would have got a lot more attention. And in my opinion these would be the best songs altogether on one album.


River Of Orchids

I'd Like That

Easter Theatre

Greenman

Your Dictionary

Harvest Festival

Stupidly Happy

Boarded Up

I'm The Man Who Murdered Love

We're All Light

Wounded Horse

The Wheel and the Maypole

[Jeff Truzzi]

I would have preferred this as the comeback/last album. I think it would have got a lot more attention. And in my opinion these would be the best songs altogether on one album.


River Of Orchids

I'd Like That

Easter Theatre

Greenman

Your Dictionary

Harvest Festival

Stupidly Happy

Boarded Up

I'm The Man Who Murdered Love

We're All Light

Wounded Horse

The Wheel and the Maypole

(Except for replacing 'Wounded Horse' with 'You And The Clouds')
I almost agree with Donavan!
Is this a first?

AV1 should have been the last album.

[Keltik]

Putting the album on and hearing River of Orchids for the first time in my tiny little car is one of my best music memories, I left the engine off and let the goose pimples cover my entire body, it really was an ecstatic reaction. The initial reaction really lasted for ages, I loved it. I've never had that experience with another XTC album- the immediate love and compulsion to keep it on repeat, every other album the appreciation had to grow on me in some way.

I had a similar experience standing on the Iron Age ramparts of Uffington Castle and yelling it into the headwind...until I couldn't for the sheer exhilarating sadness of it, and wept. Why the fuck don't we push our cars from the road, anyway?

[Keltik]

...and as to 5.1....I wasn't so convinced a couple of years ago....but I'd buy it if you brought it out. I need a new system anyway. Jeez, I bought a new turntable for the Skylarking vinyl, after all...

[donavan]

Why the fuck don't we push our cars from the road, anyway?

Because we need them.

[Andy Partridge]

Cars only for emergency services. Everyone else,cycle power,walking or horse.

[donavan]

Cars only for emergency services. Everyone else,cycle power,walking or horse.

So you never use a taxi?

You can't stop evolution even if it ends up killing us. Ask the dinosaurs.

[Spastic Minnow]

Cars only for emergency services. Everyone else,cycle power,walking or horse.

Oh sure, everyone thinks they want to live on Mackinac Island, but the tourists drive you mad in the summer and in the winter you're basically trapped there with the other 500 year-round residents.

Still, I'd recommend a visit... Just remember, to get to the Island without motor vehicles you'll have to get on a couple planes, a road vehicle or two, and a high-powered gas-driven ferry boat.

Back when I worked there I always got a kick out of all of the Amish and Old-Order Mennonites that came- in order to get there they had to abandon their horse and buggies, charter a bus and catch the ferry, in order to get to a place where people drove around with horses and buggies.