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First impressions...


  • Subject: First impressions...
  • From: "Nathaniel Mumford" <nathanielmumford@ho...com>
  • Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:12:29 +0000
  • Bcc:


I'm old-fashioned, & rushed down the shops for my copy at the first opportunity.

And i like it, i think..

The first shock is that there is no rodney solo spotlight; in fact, he's hardly on there at all if you look at the credits, maybe lending credence to rumours of a bit of a to-do between them? Especially given that his putative solo album has never seen the light, it seems a bit odd that not even one solo effort has made it onto this album.

Nor is there a credit for Wojtek, which must be another first. Although he's been looking after the kids for a good few years now, in fairness.

But once you get past these shockettes, and if you can pass over its relative brevity - 10 songs - i think it might be a sound addition to the canon. It's no vintage rocking aeroplanes record; there are very few big tunes to which one might bare one's chest in the Borderline's moshpit. Only Up in a Down World, Surreal Thing, Raise the Roof and possibly Bright Star Catalogue get above mid-tempo, and there's certainly no And Stones or suchlike to get the blood really flowing.

But nor is there an 'Open' or similar misdemeanour, which can only be a good thing. And at the production is significantly improved on the shed-at-the-end-of-the-garden lo-fi of 'Record Player'.

What it does seem to consist of is a clutch of more plangent, downbeat, mood pieces, where the vocals wash into and out of focus. He seems to be increasingly reflective and less declamatory - and adulthood is an explicit statement to this effect. Tree full of starlings, Hexanal, star below & multinational, plus the bookends, all seem to derive much more from the more impressionistic music of 'Cavaliers' than from the classic rock riff/verse/chorus/big production major label albums, but i get the distinct impression that this is the direction he's heading these days, and that this is maybe no bad thing.

I don't know whether Richard Bell is still on this list, but either way - 'Beautiful Is' is the easy favourite so far. though anything with angelo on runs it close.

The only other thing it makes me wonder is - and maybe lisa can tell us - whether there are more songs written/recorded, or whether that's it for another five or six years? Given that at least a couple of the songs on there date from the early nineties, does he have a wardrobe full of newer things to unleash on us...?

This should keep us going for a little while, though.

nat


From: <peter@in...co.uk>
Reply-To: The Blue Aeroplanes Mailing List <blueplanes@st...net>
To: "The Blue Aeroplanes Mailing List" <blueplanes@st...net>
Subject: Re: [Blueplanes] Altitude advert
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 10:29:53 +0100

got altitude delivered to me this am - already ripped to me pc so dont panic.

first listen is good and think it will be a grower too
.
tree full of starlings is luverley - but it so reminds me of the wateryboys
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: gordon
  To: The Blue Aeroplanes Mailing List
  Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 9:22 PM
  Subject: Re: [Blueplanes] Altitude advert


Somebody put up a site here a little while back, showing the Altitude cover.
    I took it for granted as a work of Ann Sheldon, but apparently not.
    In any case, it's Classic Blue Aeroplanes.
    Pity EMI couldn't stretch to a vinyl release.

    T.Rex
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Lisa Ash
      To: The Blue Aeroplanes Mailing List
      Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 2:15 AM
      Subject: Re: [Blueplanes] Altitude advert


The cover for Altitude was taken from a painting by one of Gerard's friends. He liked the way the plane is exactly at right angles/follows the lines of the streets. EMI thoguht it was cool too and it reminded all of us in the meeting of a similar, very famous photo... I DID find out what that was but Ive forgotten again now! (Imagine it as a photo and in black and white and THATS the photo Im thinking of!)

No 911 references, I think G has only just got the artwork for, it as his mate was still finishing it when the EMI deal was signed...

Sommin like that anyway! I can't quite remember now, but this is the kinda thing that I want to put on the MySpace site. :) Little bits of trivia-ry info like this.

blueaeroplanes.com will be live by the time Altitude comes out - they better get a wriggle on tho eh?! I think it's gonna be more of a 'chat about the albums' site rather than any kind of detailed and specific BA's place. Hence (again!) my ideas for MySpace.

We really DO need a proper 'place' for all this stuff. ...and Pete, I will email you re: your offer! Thank you! :)

      Lis
      x


      On 2 Apr 2006, at 01:11, Nick White wrote:

There's a big, well-placed advert in yesterday's Guardian guide. Well done EMI. Shame about the bizarrely inserted apostrophe in Aeroplanes, though, and who decided to quote the 7/10 in NME? - I thought that was quite a low rating.

The cover seems to be of a plane flying low over Manhattan - note the distinctive Chrysler building behind the title line. A deliberate September 11 reference, a composite city, an old painting, or of no significance at all? You decide....

      Yours controversially,

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