Australian new wave. Icehouse is pretty much perfect. There's some goth-y brooding, some punk-tinged anthems, some angular post-punk guitar work, some synth-y nods to Low-era Bowie, and all with a cohesive overarching vision. Following this album, Flowers changed their name to Icehouse.
Track listing:
1. Icehouse
2. We Can Get Together
3. Fatman
4. Sister
5. Walls
6. Can't Help Myself
7. Skin
8. Sons
9. Boulevard
10. Nothing to Do
11. Not My Kind
12. Send Somebody
Gimme the gun
You should also listen to:
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| Magazine - Secondhand Daylight (1979) |
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| John Foxx - Metamatic (1980) |
Icehouse is great. Their second {Primitive Man) and third (Sidewalk) albums were THE BOMB. After that they got kinda meh / more popular. However, they came back with a STUNNING (as in required listening) album of cover tunes called Berlin. You'd dig it. Icehouse covers Bowie, Roxy Music, PiL, Velvets, etc. but do it as if it ECM went into pop music. Seriously. Piano, bass viol, brushy drums, vocals. Mind. Blown. Here they are covering "Loving The Alien" by Bowie - it's better than the original.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU6zRic0AWk
Loved this album forever. The piano on "Sons" thrills me to this day.
ReplyDeleteThe wonderful Mr. Foxx, the best I've heard in a long time. I'ts something new for me.
ReplyDeleteHey i'm a new visitor to your site but i LOVE it...and i want to thank you for all the insight and humor and passion for music you have shared, and clearly continue to share; the time and effort you have put into this site is almost immediately apparent, and i for one appreciate it (not to mention the readily available albums themselves).
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that prompted me to post this comment was the inclusion of the Flowers album 'Icehouse,' with your description of the album noting that they subsequently changed their name to Icehouse; I was wondering if you've ever heard their album 'Measure for Measure.' Having read that you are a Bowie fan ''ne plus ultra,'' I thought that it would be something you would definitely dig if you HAVEN'T heard it. Plus, Brian Eno is credited as a full-fledged band member, but he doesn't handle production; Rhett Davies & David Lord handle those duties (with Davies engineering most if not all of the album). So...if you're familiar with it, sorry to prattle on; if not, I hope you will check it out...I certainly think it's worth a spin.
Anyway, thanks again, and best wishes for you in the future!
John L.
"Sidewalk was awful, actually. "Primitive Man", album 2, was very spotty, had 2 of their best songs on it. That was it for them, other than tepid radio market music.
ReplyDeletehi, tried today to DL it, but got this 403 Forbidden nginx kind of message. Can U tell me what's all about? Hanx anyway, greetings from Italy
ReplyDeleteI think that Zippyshare is blocked in Italy
DeleteOpera. I use it for DL's, and it has a built-in VPN. You can set it to Russia and that always works...
DeleteOoooh, this sounds great, but it's another one affected by Zippy going down. Can this be reupped somewhere else?
ReplyDeleteA really good mate of mine used to go out with their drummer's niece, and her Dad used to do their cover art. They were living at her Dad's place while he was out of the country for a few years and he had all the originals (including print mark ups and proofs) framed on the wall so spent a lot of time hanging there staring at the pen & ink drawing of this album many many times. Bona fide Aussie classic this one :)
ReplyDelete