While we’re always up for trying a new experimental release out, we figured it was high time we covered this artist in some degree, since Scott and I both

8 years ago

While we’re always up for trying a new experimental release out, we figured it was high time we covered this artist in some degree, since Scott and I both share a love for his music. Scott Walker (no relation to the politician of the same name) was once a singer/songwriter on the road to becoming an act on the scale of The Beatles or The Who as part of The Walker Brothers, but who, in a Beatles-esque fashion, eschewed fame and pop-oriented songwriting after a while and decided to go in an avant-garde direction. After some ups and downs, and a solo career that had a fair amount of misses as well as successes, Walker has planted himself as one of the foremost experimental musicians of the modern era, with his later trilogy (consisting of Tilt, The Drift, and Bish Bosch) being of particular acclaim, along with collaborations with bands like Sunn O))).

Tilt is the first of this trilogy, released over a decade after his previous album Climate of Hunter. It’s an album whose power comes in the form of silence, for while there are significant noisy parts on Tilt, there’s also a creeping forebodingness that seemingly covers the album, found in the emptiness of its production. Walker’s operatic baritone drives Tilt, with other instrumentation and/or production acting as an effect of sorts, while his esoteric lyricism keeps one in a state of uncanniness.

All in all, this is an album that, while initially difficult, can prove to be extremely rewarding, and stands as a pillar of what musicians are capable of if they simply believe in their own vision, however screwed up it may be.

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Published 8 years ago