Current mood: BIG
So, Mark Ronson: Lucky rich chancer or Uber talent...?
Well, for my heavily indebted dollar, Mr Ronsons productions are far too clean and clever, and his recent LP of cover versions was - with the exception of the ODB's Toxic - so warm, obvious and smug, I felt the need to bury my copy in a flower trough and piss on it for a few days before I could continue with my life....
Yes, it's a mean attitude I know, but my problem here is that the boy's so nice and smooth, I feel strong jealous urges to batter him whilst screaming "Is it possible for you not to be cool, accomplished and squeaky neat for just one FUCKING MOMENT !!?"
Anyway, enough politics and customary flim flassam.
What does yesterdays blog about struggling artists and the above Ronson chatter have to do with The Van Allen Belt's Meal Ticket To Purgatory LP???
Well, if Mark Ronson were to have struggled financially and materially for 20 years and survived to still be making LPs today, I reckon he might have done very well to have come up with something similar to this record…
So what are we talking about here??
Well, Meal Ticket To Purgatory is like a post apocalyptic opera. It sounds muddy and wild, constrained and chorused. It's thick and plentiful, and both very old fashioned, new and utterly fresh at the self same time...
Yes, despite being made on a shoestring budget with anything but a trade shows collection of gear, Meal Ticket To Purgatory is a thoroughly well worked affair. This dearth of financial backing has made this sound natural - like it was recorded live inside a 1960s garage. The melodys are excellent and the structures are both innovative and poppy..
Now, I'm no musicologist and I can't get too into dissecting the sound to find out it's secrets and glue, but I can't help but marvel at the general and detailed breadth of the vision here, but like I said atop, the production is excellent and though referential of other producers sounds - in particular the 'Wall of Sound' of Philip Spector, and some of the haunting recordings of Joe Meek - it's not a clear copy of anything i've ever heard before which is another huge plus point…
Lyrically speaking there's a good dose of politics and very occasionally they interefere, but these politics aren't rammed in your face with depressive certainty. No boss, each time a point's being made there's art to it and questions and ambiguity..
If I were to criticise anything, I'd say that some days I'd like to see one or two tracks snipped out of the middle. This said, other days the length doesn't bother me at all – I guess it depends on how much time and what my attention span is.
Anyway, this small whine makes no significant difference to my overall view which is that a Meal Ticket To Purgatory, is a full and beautiful LP that not only sounds great, but completely huge and absolutely nothing like the kind of LP you'd expect to be made on a small computer budget in 2007...So, I'm left with no option but to remove my hat and say this is a superb record that you must all buy now...
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