kleph
20-03-2006, 01:23 PM
When this strange band clambered out of Cambridge in the mid-1970s the rest of England was in the throes of the punk revolution. Instead of following the pack, they decided they had to go sideways. Proudly bearing their antecedents on their shoulders rather than trying to tear them down, the Soft Boys started a strange psychedelic counter revolt ion that almost nobody noticed at the time. Their own website boasts they were "neither crowd-pleasers nor critics' darlings, who never played to a crowd of more than three hundred during their six-year career."
"We were," said frontman and founder Robyn Hitchcock, "the wrong ship on the wrong planet."
http://forum.zgeek.com/gallery/files/2/0/1/stripes.jpgBut the planet came around. Dozens of indie bands that followed attested to the importance of the Soft Boy's glorious masterpiece Underwater Moonlight: The Replacements, R.E.M., and the L.A. Paisley Underground. Perhaps only the Velvet Underground’s first record exceeds it in this category. No less than the vaunted Trouser Press proclaimed it to have “everything — melody, power, wit, laughs and heart, not to mention a great guitar sound.”
Led by the gangly hyper-intelligent but decidedly eccentric Hitchcock the band shifted members in its formative stages but by the time it came to record this record the lineup has solidified to Morris Windsor on drums, bassist Matthew Seligman, and guitarist extraordinaire Kimberley Rew. The latter’s later association with Katrina and the Waves has sadly overshadowed his eclectic but gloriously jangly style that influenced a slew of later axemen.
Instead of throwing away everything that went before them as the Sex Pistols and their ilk were insisting was necessary. Hitchcock and Co. kept their influences alive in their work. The Byrds, Captain Beefheart, the Beatles and, most importantly, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd.
While much of their other work ranged wildly in quality and content. It all coalesced into a single beautiful whole here. "We had made records already," Hitchcock said. "But I wanted to make an album.” And that they fucking did.
The tribal fury of Windsors’ drums is perfectly contrasted with the punchy upbeat enthusiasm of Seligman’s bass. This give Rew and Hitchcock free reign to wander across the terrain tearing out huge chunks of it with a glorious psychedelic guitar fury. The result was an infectious pop sound masked seriously disturbing workings in the lyrics below.
The record doesn’t start of with a lot of hesitation. It plunges straight into the frantic dizzying glory of "I want to destroy you." It’s hard to imagine a more imaginative and powerful anti-war song that is even an fraction as upbeat as this one. Tell me if this snippet of the lyrics sounds applicable today:
I feel it coming on again/
Just like it did before
They feed your pride with boredom/
And they lead you on to war
And Hitchcock is still pissed of by the time you get to "Positive Vibrations." Said Hitchcock of the song; "I wanted to invert the way I was feeling," he said. "The Russians had invaded Afghanistan, my girlfriend took the dog to be put down. I thought, okay, let’s turn this upside down. I flipped myself over." Which is kind of odd given how fun the musical aspectof the tune turns out to be.
Then there is the bizarrely paranoid "Insanely Jealous" that follows its own paranoia to dizzying heights again and again. And it sports this cutting yet comical take on modern love I doubt any other songwriter has the raw honesty to have spoken aloud:
I don't know why the people want to meet/
When all they know is that they'll breed like rabbits in the end
Cause ordinary people on the street/
They never know/
But if they can't be rabbits they'll be friends
Then the creepy "Kingdom of Love" compares his true love to insects hatching under his skin and bursting through to the surface but Rew’s euphoric guitar work makes you enjoy every minute of it all. Lastly, the title track is the tale of two statues that come to life and swim to the depths of the sea. Or it’s about two people who commit suicide by drowning. Or both. Or neither. But what it certainly can boast is a franticly fun sound that rushes you forward just like being caught in the beautiful surf yourself.
Underwater Moonlight isn’t a relic of another time or a historical document. It is one of the rare records that is alive more than two decades after it was first released. If you are looking for the infusion of some raw inspiration to fuel your own creative urges, I assure you, there is no need to look any further than this album.
"We were," said frontman and founder Robyn Hitchcock, "the wrong ship on the wrong planet."
http://forum.zgeek.com/gallery/files/2/0/1/stripes.jpgBut the planet came around. Dozens of indie bands that followed attested to the importance of the Soft Boy's glorious masterpiece Underwater Moonlight: The Replacements, R.E.M., and the L.A. Paisley Underground. Perhaps only the Velvet Underground’s first record exceeds it in this category. No less than the vaunted Trouser Press proclaimed it to have “everything — melody, power, wit, laughs and heart, not to mention a great guitar sound.”
Led by the gangly hyper-intelligent but decidedly eccentric Hitchcock the band shifted members in its formative stages but by the time it came to record this record the lineup has solidified to Morris Windsor on drums, bassist Matthew Seligman, and guitarist extraordinaire Kimberley Rew. The latter’s later association with Katrina and the Waves has sadly overshadowed his eclectic but gloriously jangly style that influenced a slew of later axemen.
Instead of throwing away everything that went before them as the Sex Pistols and their ilk were insisting was necessary. Hitchcock and Co. kept their influences alive in their work. The Byrds, Captain Beefheart, the Beatles and, most importantly, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd.
While much of their other work ranged wildly in quality and content. It all coalesced into a single beautiful whole here. "We had made records already," Hitchcock said. "But I wanted to make an album.” And that they fucking did.
The tribal fury of Windsors’ drums is perfectly contrasted with the punchy upbeat enthusiasm of Seligman’s bass. This give Rew and Hitchcock free reign to wander across the terrain tearing out huge chunks of it with a glorious psychedelic guitar fury. The result was an infectious pop sound masked seriously disturbing workings in the lyrics below.
The record doesn’t start of with a lot of hesitation. It plunges straight into the frantic dizzying glory of "I want to destroy you." It’s hard to imagine a more imaginative and powerful anti-war song that is even an fraction as upbeat as this one. Tell me if this snippet of the lyrics sounds applicable today:
I feel it coming on again/
Just like it did before
They feed your pride with boredom/
And they lead you on to war
And Hitchcock is still pissed of by the time you get to "Positive Vibrations." Said Hitchcock of the song; "I wanted to invert the way I was feeling," he said. "The Russians had invaded Afghanistan, my girlfriend took the dog to be put down. I thought, okay, let’s turn this upside down. I flipped myself over." Which is kind of odd given how fun the musical aspectof the tune turns out to be.
Then there is the bizarrely paranoid "Insanely Jealous" that follows its own paranoia to dizzying heights again and again. And it sports this cutting yet comical take on modern love I doubt any other songwriter has the raw honesty to have spoken aloud:
I don't know why the people want to meet/
When all they know is that they'll breed like rabbits in the end
Cause ordinary people on the street/
They never know/
But if they can't be rabbits they'll be friends
Then the creepy "Kingdom of Love" compares his true love to insects hatching under his skin and bursting through to the surface but Rew’s euphoric guitar work makes you enjoy every minute of it all. Lastly, the title track is the tale of two statues that come to life and swim to the depths of the sea. Or it’s about two people who commit suicide by drowning. Or both. Or neither. But what it certainly can boast is a franticly fun sound that rushes you forward just like being caught in the beautiful surf yourself.
Underwater Moonlight isn’t a relic of another time or a historical document. It is one of the rare records that is alive more than two decades after it was first released. If you are looking for the infusion of some raw inspiration to fuel your own creative urges, I assure you, there is no need to look any further than this album.