Much has been written about Scott Walker, moreso in the last 12 mths since the release of 'The Drift' and the film '30th Century Man'. Of course Scott's recent bag is not everyone's cuppa and i am confident in saying that 99%+ of earth bound humans have zero desire to dip their toes in his warbling and brooding pond. I get obsessive sometimes but rarely to the level i have found myself following the release of "The Drift". It is THE record of the last 7 years, the one i always return to, the one i always enjoy and for me it has made my listening life most content.

From our end, he seems to have 'put all the pieces' together in such an incomprehensible way. I had a pal from berlin over on the weekend and she was lamenting the lack of anything fresh in her local scene. The point being that there is well established rules and parameters even with the most radical of players, that many of the shows come across somewhat formulaic and certainly predictable. We had this discussion whilst listening to the new cd release of Mr Engel's music for the CandoCo Dance Company. It did cross our minds that the recent work of Mr Walker stands so far away from the experimental whole simply as the trajectory of his career has been a most unusual one indeed. Qithout this could he have come up with this, if he spent his whole life involved with experimental/abstract music would he have still come up with this?

As i said all this has been spoken of infinitum, this is not a forum for me to repeat what can easily be found elsewhere.

The Drift fucked with me personally (in the best way possible). I am pretty fussy when it comes to music today, sure, i get excited now and then, but i am currently sitting in the camp that the enourmous growth in music production in this digital age not only increases the amount of average releases, but actually brings down the quality of good releases, the trickle down theory of knobbed up trots!

3/4 had been eliminated (and that whole Italian 'scene'), Kemialliset Ystvat (and offshoots), The Skaters (and offshoots), and quite a few other bods are acts i would cite which spark enthusiasm and general pleasure, many Australian acts butter my crumpet, sure, but i just can't deal with all the metal/pscyh/folk referances, delay pedal drone, psych this, doom that, graphic design 'evil' etc, etc. All the generic photocopies made by craniums too young to have been 'touched' by the original and therefore remain citing the influenced. As the years go by, each generation of noodle stew seems yet another further step from 'spark' or even 'magic' (welcome old jaded mofo) !

But the Drift is above and beyond for me. It's a cracker musical nightmare, a radio play?, greek tragedy?, a general what the? all this meets good time sonic edginess and even a few gaffaws. After endless plays i am still suprised this actually exists. Love him or take the piss, he remains a super fine goog in our books.

Post "Drift" has been a fairly productive period for Scott Walker. A rather frightening contribution to the "Plague songs" compilation, a strange, hysterical call and response number called "Darkness" appeared later last year and now this new jobbie which was released to the masses yesterday. As it was coming out on cd I did actually contemplate skipping the dance production it was designed to accompany, despite the fact that there was only going to be 2 shows in London and a couple elsewhere in the UK. Well, cats and kittens I am very glad I flipped out of this momentary lapse of stupidity.

As those interested will soon find out - the new work is scored for a small ensemble of strings, percussion, sax, flute and electronics. It has a very different feeling again, not falling back on the dark sonic mass of The Drift or the outa nowhere sharp shocked Hollercapela of 'Darkness'. This is a more overtly dynamic, spacious and even a 'romantic'work, incorporating a range of stylistic moments from the somewhat musical through to overwhelming abstraction (i think it is mojo magazine that refered to it as "the viennesse school via merzbow"). It's most definately a later day work by Walker and if you dig his schtick up till now yr gonna flip ya bones and remain be a happy chappy when this number is devoured over and over. Despite having a different feeling, mood, approach and timbre than The Drift, this slips in well amongst recent works, the albums of course but also the work he did for the Pola X soundtrack and the 2 absolute cracker tracks that he wrote for Ute Lemper.

Live, you may ask?

Well, as it turns out, this was about as close to live as Mr Walker has been for many moons. The set up for this work as a live component comprised of 4 double bass players at the back of the stage and 1 chap conducting these cats. The rest was all playback including all electronics, drums, brass etc... The dancers did their thing in front of these players in a dark sparse environment. It started as it does on the release (all the music followed the cd 100%) with sub bass electronics, sharp flourescent lighting cutting through the darkness on stage, this being syncronised with the stabs of sound in part 1. From this point in it was really a music dominated event. The sound was loud, the range was vast, the dynamics intense. The dancing was often great, especially the combination of those in a wheelchair with the 'abled' dancers, some pretty flipped shit, it was a busy, busy stage let me tell you. Less in yr standard modern dancy biz, more like the harlem globetrotters if they wore tight pants and flapped around to atonality as opposed to popping fancy hoops too an (admitedly) catchy whistle blown toon. And so it was, new Scott Walker music being performed 'live' - exciting for a geek like me!

This would have been enough if the good lady by my side had not pointed out mid way that in fact Scott was standing at the back of the room behind the mixing desk 'conducting' the mixer with regards to amplified playback of the musicians and the playback of pre-recorded electronics, other instrumentation etc. Yes, he had baseball cap on and after recent press shots and film footage this was undoubtedly our main man. The best part of all was the ridiculous amount of enthusiam he had going on. His gestures to get Mr Mixer to increase the volume were excitable in the extreme, when the digital noise followed by the bells came in, he was punching his fists in the air (wolf eyes style!) he was really enthusiastic, he was loosing it! loosing himself in his own sonic mileau! It was hard not too really, the sound was ridiculously good in the Queen Elizabeth Hall and given the live component and intense nature of most of the later half of this work, well, it was pretty overwhelming stuff for all of us. For Scott to hear his own new work played in this fashion would have been a buzz for the boy, moreso maybe as it does not have the baggage of a new Scott Walker record 'proper' as such. Most of the audience did seem to be dance fans (and dance students, loads of students), a few music heads for sure, but the bulk were dance and this alone would have provided a more relaxed scenario to turn up and oversee all this business, without the lickers, spotters and bloggers (!) turning up in droves.

Scott has been threatening a return to stage 'proper' for quite awhile now and given that this evening actually occurred to this degree points to a scenario whereby this may very well happen one day...

Thanks London, you are kind to us sometimes, especially this week. Good Times indeed!!

Scott Walker - And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball?