Secret Eye
Various Artists : For the Dead in Space VOL. II & III (var.,2003)**°/**°° (g-vg & ex)
Many people asked after the appearance of the first very good Tom Rapp / Pearls Before Swine tribute if and when a second volume would appear, so here are two-in-one follow-ups at once. For those who are not familiar with Tom Rapp songs, I would describe them myself as the true poetic side of the late 60's, in various ways. The poetic words used are symbolic in a personal, transcendent and general way, while the music colours the mood of them. I don't know if listeners would all listen the same way to Tom Rapp and his PBS group's releases, but I surely have this in mind when I listen.
I had the impression with the first tribute album that many contributions came close to that same spirit of what I understood from Tom Rapp. Most participating musicians on these new tribute albums however, mostly were not even born at the time of PBS, and I think they must have a very different approach from me to PBS music, because I don't feel this angle, not even in a variation of it. This double CD release mostly sounds like a post 80's groups tribute album, with a more "cloudy moods" alternative sound. Where in the 60's and early 70's the clarity of ideas was important, in alternative 80's inspired groups, IMHO I think there's less talent needed or at least being explored, because expressing "music" with the sounds of more vaguely cloudy moods, always works as an effect, even if it hides a lack of talent, because the music has at least an effect. Within this tendency of expression, the compilation with many of these more 80's inspired groups, the compilation still is very consistent, mostly for the first CD, and after a couple of entirely different tracks with lesser "mood creation", also for the second. Still I wonder how much an appearance on a Pearls Before Swine tribute album is not more than an occasion, instead of a real tribute in its spirit. People who experienced the 80's think differently, and they are creative with sounds in a different spirit. PBS seems to work for them as mirage stimulation to make a variation of their own kind of reflective sounds. This means also that these groups have a slightly darker sound, with more attention to electrified sound effects, than to the poetic, esoteric and symbolic open psychology core, with acoustic translation of a deeper lying inner vision that covers more than what the effect brings to us.
But there are exceptions on this release, that have the end 60's and 70's in their core as well. Marissa Nadler, for instance -(see review of her solo release)- who succeeded in creating a (Elisabeth Wayne Gharley, ex-PBS)..kind of mood. (with her version of "Ballad to an amber lady"). The tracks of the talented Prydwyn and Kitchen Cynics are a bit short to say too much about them, but I know from earlier contacts and listens that these people understood the essence. It are mostly the Prydwyn related groups that really succeed to make real tributes in its completeness of what a tribute could mean. The Prydwyn related groups here are Green Crown (see review of their earlier releases here) : with "Raindrops", and Stone Breath ("Ring Ting") with perfect male & female vocals, guitar, noises. A few other musicians did fine attempts to reconsider the real original content (with Ron Chelsvig being closest to being inspired from a similar musical content source, and Mutter with a fine personal version). Most of those who tried something similar all have this neo-folk darkness finding a closer similarity to alternative music. Very welcome on this release is also an unpublished original live recording of Pearls Before Swine named "Translucent Carriages" with string and organ arrangements, '67,'68.
Although, like I said before, most groups are more arranged like post-80's alternative Indie flavoured music, and their expressions are for me already far away from Pearls Before Swine, it is mostly the first CD that gives the most balanced consistent listening. In general I still don't understand this approach much. For me the double release does not bring me much closer to the music of Tom Rapp or PBS, not even from a different angle. Therefore the approaches of most groups is too much from a completely different angle to be entirely successful. But, Woolfman added to my conclusion correctly : "Still in a world of commercial bland palliatives, this tribute CD thankfully does a valuable service to the flame of Tom Rapp / PBS in that it makes him opaquely visible to a potentially new generation". For those of new generations PBS might began to mean something different which I don't see or understand yet. It is fine music, but for most of the CD it's not acid folk or psych folk with a 60's or '70 edge any more.
PS. I also don't understand the front cover very well. While the first tribute's album cover was really perfect, referring to the content beyond songs like "Rocketman" and a lot more, I don't see why there must be three Christ's among a star cluster. Symbolically this theme seems also distracted..
PS. A few remarks on the different approaches on a few more of the not yet mentioned groups will be added later, at the time of giving this airplay. I also need a few more listens before I can finish this.
Links to involved groups :
David Rapp
