Scott Walker (Scott Engel) was one of the many pop stars of the Sixties who delivered
radio-friendly refrains for mass consumption, aided by a marketing campaign
that emphasized his cute looks over his uninspired songs (rings a bell?
yes, those were the days of the teen idols and of the Beatles).
However, his solo albums wed that old-fashioned easy-listening sound to
philosophical meditations in lugubrious settings, and therefore created
a new form of ballad, predating David Bowie, Julian Cope and trip-hop.
California-born and Hollywood-raised singer songwriter Scott "Walker" Engel
formed the Walker Brothers with Gary Leeds (the former
Standells drummer) and John Maus.
Their first hit, Love Her, produced by Jack Nitschze, was released
in 1965, when they moved to England, where they had three hits:
Make It Easy On Yourself (by Burt Bacharach),
My Ship Is Coming,
Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (by Bob Crewe).
They managed to release ten albums (all them in the top 10) in three years.
They broke up in 1967.
Walker was the star. He was a "teen idol" identified with lacrimose songs
and symphonic arrangements.
He became the king of the melancholy, melodramatic ballad
but in reality he had become an alcoholic and attempted suicide.
Take It Easy
Portrait
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Scott Walker's solo career began with two albums, named
Scott (Fontana, 1967) and
Scott 2 (Philips, 1968),
which were mainly tributes to his idol Jacques Brel.
The latter included his first classics, The Girls From The Streets and
Plastic Palace People.
Scott 3 (Philips, 1969) was mainly his own material, in particular
Copenhagen, It's Raining Again, Rosemary, Big Louise
and We Came Through.
Scott 4 (Philips, 1969) maintained the Brel influence, but now the material was
all Walker's and the arrangements were more Morricone-style than Bacharach
or Spector-style
(Seventh Seal, Boy Child, The Old Man's Back Again).
His songs were set in a decadent milieu of prostitutes,
gangsters and misfits, but delivered in an operatic style.
Boy Child (Fontana, 1992) is a collection of Walker's self-composed songs
of the first four albums.
Til the Band Comes In (1970) had some majestic numbers (the title-track),
but overall couldn't compete with its predecessor.
The Moviegoer (1972) is a cover album.
Stretch (Columbia, 1973) is a country album.
Any Day Now (1973) and We Had It All (1974) are as mediocre
as the previous ones.
A 1975 Walker Brothers reunion yielded the hit
No Regrets (written by Tom Rush).
No Regrets (1992) is an anthology of the hits.
Walker lived in isolation until 1984 when he returned with his bleakest
album ever, Climate of Hunter (Virgin, 1984), the work of a consummate
artist but also of a tormented soul.
Another late album, Tilt (Fontana, 1995), twists the conventions
of the pop song to the point that the "pieces" sound like austere lieder:
the pseudo-Gregorian chant with strings of Farmer in the City (a requiem for Pierpaolo Pasolini),
the eight-minute Patriot (the other soaring strings-tinged hymn),
the noisy and apocalyptic The Cockfighter,
the distorted Tilt,
the tragic organ toccata of Manhattan (ruined by an inept dance beat).
It is a stark program, drenched in sound effects and mostly empty soundscapes.
The ultimate manifestation of the album's mood is
the nine-minute gothic atmosphere of Bouncer See Bouncer, with the
voice alone in a vast empty space with an electronic tremor and a distant banging.
His pompous and agonizing tenor is uniquely positioned halfway between classical
and pop music. It is not the most beautiful of voices, but what it lacks in
elegance, soulfulness, psychology and power it gains in stately intensity.
Since most of the songs are devoid of orchestral arrangements, the sound effects
play a key role in establishing the atmosphere.
Too bad he became an "auteur" when nobody was paying attention anymore.
Five Easy Pieces (Universal, 2003) is a five-disc anthology
(no out-takes, demos, unreleased material, or other assorted junk).
Drift (4AD, 2006), the first album in eleven years,
sounded like a less stiff version of Tilt.
Walker was now capable of blending the stance of the classical composer,
the gloomy atmosphere of the expressionist drama,
the psychological aesthetics of the soundsculptor
and the literary gravity of the national bard,
but still limited himself to sparse arrangements,
a sort of contradiction in terms.
Furthermore, the cycle was permeated with the paranoid angst of the
2001 terrorist attacks, although
diluted in semiotic and existential kammerspielen such as Jesse ("I'm the only one left alive") or metaphorically conveyed via
the 13-minute historical drama Clara (a stark recitation in a terrifying
soundscape that makes Tilt seem positively uplifting).
The absence of music is what makes Cue truly powerful:
Walker is never afraid of letting the music die. When they rise from the
abyss, the strings simulate screams, adding a human touch to the hellish
melodrama.
Walker's stubborn preference for "not" arranging his melodies is what makes
them so unnerving.
In fact the ones that are (relatively) heavily arranged
Jolson and Jones,
the gothic The Escape) don't fare too well.
As usual, Walker's voice was the most vulnerable element of his project
(the self-penned lyrics being a close second).
Bish Bosch (4AD, 2012),
with a string orchestra conducted by keyboardist Mark Warman,
contains the 22-minute psychodrama SDSS1416+13B, mostly recited
in an almost frightened tone amid sparse chamber, percussive and electronic sounds.
Soused (4AD, 2014) was a collaboration with Sunn O))).
Basically, the duo was asked to soundpaint Walker's lengthy abstract
meditations. The results depend on how easily Walker's songs can be turned
into musical entitites.
The problem is particularly obvious in the 1999 Lullaby (9.22),
for which the duo of instrumentalists cannot quite find music.
Where the duo succeeds, the liability is Walker's operatic croon.
Brando (8.43) is a terrific and terrifying sci-fi post-apocalypse
soundtrack, mixing industrial horror and
Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine, but its atmosphere is completely
ruined by Walker's silly convoluted babbling.
Massive distorted guitar drones and squealing reeds can do little to redeem
Herod 2014 (11.59) from its torpor, and in fact in the second half
a number of a new artifices are brought in, to no avail.
They seem to give up in Bull (9.20) and simply let the guitar drone
forever.
The best moment comes in the middle of Fetish (9.09) when the "om"-like
choir enters the fray and then the beat picks up. Too little too late.
The way Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson
follow and enhance Walker's singing is admirable,
Without the vocals, this would have been a great follow-up to
their Monoliths & Dimensions.
