Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 31/10/05
Label: Atlantic

The re-emergence of Kate Bush from an unspecified cave raises a number of questions. Whilst we ponder if we're allowed to be fascinated by a song based around the spin cycle phase of a washing machine, it also reminds us that there are other rock recluses who might just as well be dead. Not in a cruel sense, of course, rather an enthralled confusion over their desire to merge into the wall of a fantastical, mystique-soaked career. For example, where on Earth is Scott Walker? Have you seen him recently? I certainly haven't.

Walker could perhaps last be considered an operational music 'force' a decade ago. "Tilt" was released in 1995 and, true to the form of this extravagantly cryptic star, is perhaps the most monumentally difficult album ever, a 60-minute brain haemorrhage of black sonic ambition and colossal darkness. Signing-off with a one-track turn on TV show "Later…", hiding behind an acoustic guitar and standing closer to the BBC car park than the stage, this was the last we saw of him.

As if a reminder was needed as to how he became so heroically enigmatic, "Classics & Collectibles" is a weighty double CD compilation of Scott Walker's early career. Spanning 1965-'73, this is a worthy introduction to an incomparably intriguing man, whilst also serving as a vaguely interesting round-up of unreleased soundtrack covers. However, as compelling as CD2 perhaps is for Scott die-hards, the full 23 tracks comprise a trawl of such slushy, MOR standards as to propel the listener towards the same monastic exodus that Walker himself embarked on at the height of his terrifying 60s fame.

Going to live in a monastery is, unquestionably, one of the coolest things a pop star can do, but CD1 offers approximately 22 acts of equally staggering genius. Between 1967 and 1969, Scott banished to music Heaven the memory of scripted, Sinatra-esque, crooning showmanship of The Walker Brothers - perhaps the first 'boyband' - that produced the lonesome apocalypse of "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore". Rather, he recorded a quartet of self-penned LPs - "Scott 1-4" - that conjured serene then dramatic complex walls of operatic sound, Walker brooding and booming lavish stories of hookers, transvestites, Stalin, plague and, of course, love.

There are many highlights from those four albums here and all showcase a unique talent that went on to influence David Bowie, Julian Cope, Marc Almond, Jarvis Cocker, Antony & The Johnsons etc. "Mathilda", "Scott"'s opening track, is astonishing, a galloping rhapsody of horns and Walker's love-stunned insanity, "Angels Of Ashes" an almost hymnal prayer for deliverance, "It's Raining Today" both unsettling and dawn beautiful, whilst the remarkable "Plastic Palace People" peers through the looking glass to capture the full shifting surreality of "Alice In Wonderland".

Needless to say, we could go on and while we could also hanker endlessly for the return of Scott Walker, it's taken many of us ten years to get over the full horror of "Tilt". "Classics & Collectibles" is probably a more realistic and rewarding prospect.

    by Ben Gilbert