АКВАРИУМ (AQUARIUM) - Навигатор (Navigator) (1995)

Review by: Nina A.

Album assigned by: Dinar Khayrutdinov

Am I always glad to spend some more time in the philosophical company of the only Russian musician we have heard of on this blog - namely the great otherworldly bearded bardic guru Boris Borisovich Grebenshchikov. He certainly wasn't always bearded though and while I have no idea what the progress of his facial hair was by 1995, which is when Navigator got released, what I do know is that after the fall of the Berlin wall, Mr. Grebenshchikov had also already tried to use this new opportunity to export his creative efforts to the West. Here, Wikipedia tells us that he didn't quite make it and this could be partly attributed to the fact that Russian song tradition emphasizes lyrical complexity over hook and drive, which in the West earned him comparisons to Dylan and not much chart success, and I think it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that his music was considered for one of the two primordial categories (has hooks: "ooh, Beatle-esque pop!!" vs. has an emphasis on lyrical content: "ooh, Dylan!!!"), as you do, in musical critique, with anything that is new.

Saddened with this new development, Mr. Grebenshchikov decided to go full-on Russian apparently and released the so-called Russian Album, a beautiful acoustic folk-rock affair that relies even more on Russian songwriting tradition, and later, in 1995 came Navigator, which continued in this unmistakably Russian bardic vein with some French chanson flavour and bluesy touches (fourth track “Не коси”'s blues guitar contributed by Mick Taylor stands out here) for good measure. The album was recorded in London, so it also featured contributions by Dave Pegg on the double bass and Dave Mattacks on drums. And since it made use of a bunch of additional instruments: strings, flute, recorder, harpsicord, accordion, mandolin, Tibetan drums, I was curious to look to a previous eclectic Aquarium effort, and nothing spells eclecticism quite like a Russian album named Radio Africa with some Chinese characters plastered on top of a photo taken at the Gulf of Finland, for comparison. While on 1988's Radio Africa the creative use of the additional instruments to drive the beat or make the texture of the music more complex can rock your socks off with delight, here on Navigator these instruments serve more of a background atmosphere role because it is the bardic narration that takes the front and centre. This is especially so on the title track “Навигатор”, which can really be used as a textbook example of a touching bardic ballad. Well, if you are touched by this type of thing, anyway.

And for all the talk of Dylan, I think that namedropping Mark Knopfler would also not be too out of reach here because didn't Mr. Knopfler also have a reputation for being a young man who writes good music for old people? (at around 40 at the time of Navigator’s release, Mr. Grebenshchikov was not even eligible for a midlife crisis yet). But more importantly, I feel that both Mr. Knopfler and Mr. Grebenshchikov have been able to pull of songs that are pretty much driven by a lyrical narration and have a comforting melancholy sound with remarkable ease. However, while the majority of Mark Knopfler’s narrations are concerned with ordinary life drama, with most of Boris Grebenshchikov’s composition aspire to levels of Byronic spleen and irony paired with incredible erudition, a combination that has over the years become somewhat of a staple for the model tortured soviet artist (and while soviet times are safely behind us, such artistic types still hang around, inexplicably, mostly in the sphere of fine arts and film education, proudly passing this refined tradition onto their students). Still, Boris Grebenshchikov was made to pull this archetype off and make it very likeable: let’s not forget his friendly melancholy voice of ancient wisdom, talent for lyrical detail and the aforementioned erudition that allows him to slip in the occasional religious or mythological detail for full impact. It is really comforting in a sense when he tackles this aesthetic in his music, and whatever the wry commentary in a particular song might be, you’d accept it with the “I know what you’re talking about” reserved for your closest friends with which you’ve suffered the blows of fate together for God knows how long… yeah, the 90s weren’t the most cheerful of eras in Eastern Europe.

Anyway, Navigator is a fine record put together with loving care and intelligence, featuring no less than two accordion-driven waltzy numbers, two bluesy tracks, a rousing folk epic (track 3 – “Кладбище”) and a whole lot of gentle intimate singing in the finest Russian bardic tradition. The reaction it got out of me was “aww, how cute and so very admirably authentic” but it might get some even more cathartic reactions from other listeners and truly cement Boris Borisovich Grebenshchikov's status of everyone’s favourite great otherworldly bearded bardic guru.

CORDEL DO FOGO ENCANTADO - Cordel do Fogo Encantado (2001)

Review by: Tom Hadrian Kovalevsky
Album assigned by: Francelino Prazeres de Azevedo Filho

and Arcadio could not find his shoes in the thick afternoon heat, sweltering in dread, as they were not on the porch like Valentina suggested. Valentina escaped admonishment by slithering across the smooth polished floors of the upper part and clinging to the sides of the walls. Alberta clapped her hands in the cool murky downstairs salon, her thin leathery fingers gleaming with fresh water from the fountain, and announced that it was time for piano lessons, and Arcadio, without shoe or delicate beautiful tweed coat from the far-off England of the norman men kicked himself out of the low window onto the garden bed, where the thin weeds and ugly flowers that grew and stagnated there wound themselves around his bony legs and tickled his pink flesh, and he let out a girlish little displeased scream, and Valentina rushed to the bedroom window and saw her delicate brother rushing down the lime-green hill, kicking off reeds of tall grass that caught upon his legs. Valentina called for mother mother moTHER MOTHER MOTHER MOTHER ALBERTA quickly, and slammed her delicate little fingers up and down upon the windowsill with a primal anticipation of Arcadio’s capture. She wailed about escaping piano lessons and not being fed dinner and possibly even worse things to come, and banged upon the wooden frame so hard it was audible for miles around, but to Arcadio it sounded only like drums and a joyous singing, a shouting perhaps, almost half in mourning and half in celebration, in a language from another place that he couldn’t understand. 

VARIOUS ARTISTS (Compiled by DAVID TOOP) - Ocean of Sound (1996)

ASSIGNED BY THE HOST: Great Compilation Albums
Review by: Jaime Vargas Sánchez

Something sounds while you walk by. It will keep sounding even when you are not there, and your mind will have been attracted to something else.

Or maybe not. Maybe your mind is still remembering and playing with what you heard earlier.

In the classical music paradigm, a musical piece was something that developed in time. It went to places. It changed, evolved, and in the apex of the symphonic language’s growth in the 19th century, even direct repetition was frowned upon, because it made no sense to embark on a journey to get back where one started. It was an object, and a narrative, the soundtrack of an era where progress was king and the end of knowledge was theorized to be near.

David Toop’s book “Ocean of Sound”, for which this compilation servers as a soundtrack of sorts, deals with the opposite of that. The lazy description would be that it deals with ambient music and similar, but actually it talks about a kind of music that transcends genres; a music that seems to be in a sort of stasis. And so we find here ambient, yes, but also classical music, jazz (free and fusion), musique concrète,treated field recordings (many by Toop himself), rock, electronica… and well known names such as Les Baxter, Holger Czukay, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis (both at their most electric), My Bloody Valentine, Harold Budd, John Cage, and of course Brian Eno.

The best thing about this compilation is the sequencing. Every track flows seamlessly into the next (so much that in some cases an element that wasn’t there before, such as a vocal, prompted me to see that, yes, it was another track, and on a more attentive listening it was apparent that actually the entire instrumentation was different yet I had not noticed). As minimalist music gives way to recordings of chimes, as boat horns and wildlife get juxtaposed with experimental jazz, we understand how time works here. We are not witnessing a journey. We are taking a walk. Our surroundings change – but not with any sense of inevitability. The music is not the same as a minute ago, but in the same way that it changed like this, it could have changed any other way, and yet there’s not a lack of cohesion.

A good summation could be the Ornette Coleman track included. It’s not directed anywhere per se. But even if we could say it’s directionless, it’s not aimless. It’s beautiful music that simply “is”. But if you are preparing yourself to be awash in a sea of rhythmic fluidity and aural massage, the tracklist is subversive since the start, as the album begins with King Tubby’s dub reggae – by no means a kind of music lacking in pulse – and settles for a while in a groove provided by Herbie Hancock first and Aphex Twin later before moving to stiller places just when you thought you were in the coolest club ever. Notice however how the stasis Toop mentioned is still there – all three songs sound like they are moving but in reality they are not actually going anywhere.

The inclusion of Debussy’s “Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune” is a given since Toop sees him as the genesis of 20th century music, and it’s interesting that in the company of the other tracks, this composition, which at its time was revolutionary in that it seemed to paint a still picture – none of the “telling a story” pretensions of Lisztian tone poems – sounds like having a lot of movement in comparison. It works a bit less with the included Velvet Underground song, which I think has too much of a traditional dynamic to fit. In that regard I think the My Bloody Valentine selection works much better. It’s also curious to hear the well-known “Fire” theme from the Beach Boys’ “Smile” here – actually in its Smiley Smile “Fall Breaks and Back to Winter” guise, no doubt because it was the only official version of it at the time of the compilation – and noticing how well it works.

By now I think it’s clear that I like the album. That I recommend the album. Maybe you did not make an impression from my words. It’s all right – just go listen to it if you can. After all, to paraphrase Brian Eno’s manifesto, much of this music can be as ignorable as it is interesting. As background noise I far prefer it to TV. But do listen.

Summing up will make me sound like I was getting somewhere, which defeats the entire philosophy of the sonic ocean.

So I just keep on walking.

EDAN - Beauty and the Beat (2005)

Review by: Syd Spence
Album assigned by: Eric Pember

There are many types of disappointing albums. There is the kind that the hype machine has made the album’s reputation grow to monstrous proportions, to the point where anything but the second coming of Pet Sounds would leave you feeling underwhelmed. This is particular popular with the website Pitchfork and their numerous flavors of the month. Then there is the aggravated form of this phenomenon, where it's not just some hipster journal trying to suck your eyeballs for attention, but from the grand whole of western music criticism. This album is the greatest ever says every learned soul in all of the rock ‘n’ roll journals, but you stumble upon it and it just leaves you flat. I've experienced this with many sacred cows like Who's Quadrophenia or Who's Tommy. In fact most of Who's catalogue. Then there is a band who you held in high regard, whose last album really lit a fire in your soul and you are just on pins and needles waiting for that next musical hit. Then they release it and … Oooo boy, is it not as good. Hell, it might even be a good record analyzed by it's mere lonesome but compared to that last masterstroke it might as well be nickleback. Pretty much the totality of the Rolling Stone's post Exile records fit into this category, because lets face it, it's only rock n' roll and not perfection.

And then there is something different, an album that isn't bad at all, nor is it of a lesser quality then it’s predecessor. No, the album is so good, so genius, so phenomenal that it's very existence taints other albums in it's genre. It's not disappointing, it just makes all of its competitors disappoint in comparison. Edan's Beauty and the Beat is one such example of this phenomenon I've listened to a multitude of classic hip hop masterpieces, and yes, many of them were good, but none of them hit that sweet spot that Beauty and the Beat hit. Why? Because this record is exceptional in production, lyrics and form.

One click in any musical encyclopedia will mention that this is a psychedelic hip hop record. That alone makes it unique. Now a multitude of hip hoppers may make the odd trippy song or make an ode to a non alcohol/weed/codeine substance (ex. D-12's Purple Pills), but these were one off tracks and generally the artist got back to the business at hand,whether it be bravado or tales of ghetto living. Beauty and Beat on the other hand, drips lysergia from every pore, especially in regard to its production. 

Edan is an excellent DJ, you can just feel how long he scoured record store crates. searching for obscure samples to use on this record, and boy did he hit a main vein. He pillages the rubble of '60s psychedelia to fill this album with psychedelic nuggets. As a huge fan of 60's psychedelia, I've always been delighted when I find a song that Edan has sampled on this record and so far I've only found two, which are Music Machine's Hey, Joe and Pretty Thing's Wall of Destiny, featured on Making Planets and Murder Mystery respectively. That’s quite an impressive feat considering the amount of obscure psychedelia on my hard drive.

Edan doesn't just let the obscure samples do the majority of the work, like say a NWA's Express Your Self type jam. No, he expertly blends, manipulates, and adds effects to these tracks. There are weird lazer beams, bubbling cauldrons, backmasked orchestras and god knows what else. All painstakingly gathered to inflame your brain's novelty centers.. Every note, every sample, sounds just perfectly placed in it's surreal beauty and it all leads to one mesmerizing whole. Each track progresses into the next making the albums feel less like a mixtape and more like a singular piece, a psychedelic suite of hip hop perfection.

Though the production of this album is phenomenal, this isn't just some DJ Shadow style record, No this is rap music and Edan is a MC as well. Now his flow is not the best, but compared to the epitome of producer turned MC, Kanye West, he's a goddamn Biggie Smalls. His style is that of an urban white kid with an abstract flair, like a streetwise kid that went to art school. It's pretty decent, but I feel his collaborators steal the show on their tracks. For example, on Torture Chamber, Percee P spits a frenetic, terrifying ode to his rap prowess, comparing his rhymes to the heinous murders of famous serial killers. It's fantastic in conveying menace in a psychedelic stream of cruel consciousness, like he's the rap Charles Manson.

Though this record does make use of the typical subject matter of hip hop like Percee P's torturous rap bravado, it tackles something I've not heard in hip hop before. It uses poetry to elucidate the psychedelic experience. It reminds me of this sample off this psytrance track, about the mysterious ancient Indian Drug Soma. The sample states, “Soma is not really a plant. Poetry is not really language. Soma is poetry.” or as Edan puts it. “I use pens like hallucinogenics, so who can pretend my music isn't a beautiful thing.” Let's use the track Murder Mystery as an example of this beautiful thing. In it Edan uses the hazy dark psychedelic Pretty Things sample to rhyme abstractly. A sample of his verse reads,

        Pour the hourglass sand in the rusted tin can

        The looking glass man dressed in robes from Japan

        The chauffeur of the van with the globe in his hand

        The roller coaster lands in the ocean


        Alas, the commotion is matched by the force of the splash

        The source of the blast was a porcelain gat

I have no idea what any of that means but it's sounds magnificent. It's a collection of beautiful surreal imagery, that leads your mind in novel and strange corridors, making you feel like those hallucinogenic pens are beginning to take hold. This abstract imagery is not unheard of in rock (The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes, etc), but I've yet to hear anything like this on a rap record. Well, at least in a psychedelic sense, Ol' Dirty Bastard does seem to convey what I think crack cocaine would be like, but I digress.

The last point I'd like to make is that this album is a brief 39 minutes long, with not a single duff track or lame skit. I can't think of a single one of my other favorite hip hop records that pull off that feat. Biggie's Ready to Die has that lame sex skit. Dr Dre's 2001 has all those songs that aren't The Next Episode and Forgot about Dre. Hell, even albums that have no bad tracks like say Enter the 36 chambers, go on a bit too long. This record is a sweet 39 minutes and frankly always leads you wanting more.

Edan's Beauty and the Beat is disappointing in this regard. Edan has yet to make another LP. Yeah, he made a mix of oldschool hip hop tracks (reimagined Edan style) in 2009, but he's yet to make a proper LP. It's disappointing, cause the things I would do for some more Edan, but perhaps it's for the best. It's better to leave with a bang than make a mediocre sequel. Though, honestly, in these 11 years, I've hungered for some goats head soup. Oh well, I guess i'll just have to endure with whatever hip hop Quadrophenia Kanye's cooked up as of late. Pitchfork said it was great, so I know I won't be disappointed.

THE WAILIN' JENNYS - Bright Morning Stars (2011)

Review by: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Album assigned by: Graham Warnken

I was going to start this review by pointing out how the fact that the name of the group was a convoluted pun on Waylon Jennings was probably the most interesting thing there was to say about them! Truth is I originally found Bright Morning Stars to be massively soporific, to the extent that I had to force myself to listen to it all the way through. And it’s no understatement to say that I really struggled to summon up any kind of enthusiasm for it. But before I continue on my way to the eventual denouement of this little tale, let me give you at least a smidgen of background on the band itself. 

The Wailin’ Jennys are a female vocal harmony trio in the country-folk-roots mould. They hail from Canada -- the band was formed in Winnipeg on the Eastern edge of the wide Canadian Prairies -- and the record, Bright Morning Stars, their fourth album, was first released in 2011. My first few listens I’ll admit to having them down as the kind of placid, overly sincere music that you might associate with say a feminist knitting circle, or a tiresome but particularly self-satisfied coffee shop. It’s not that I have any kind of problem with country music or folksy americana (set aside for the moment the fact that it’s Canadians that made this) in general: no, not at all. Indeed a lot of my favourite music would easily fit that description, or at least fall within the overall sphere of influence of those genres. It’s just, well, I couldn’t escape the whiff of cliche emanating from the album, and I found it to be an awfully dreary and generic affair at first -- but let me emphasise that ‘at first’ here. 

But even more than that, I was put off by the fact that the whole album seemed stuck in a sort of low energy trap, which isn’t much help when you consider that -- and realise I am in no way proud of this -- my main mode of listening to music nowadays is over headphones at work. And, well, I have enough problems concentrating on anything for more than a few minutes during working hours anyway, so the additional torpor induced by Bright Morning Stars made it a challenge to get through, especially on balmy afternoons with the sunlight streaming in through the blinds. I was after something much more ‘stimulating’ and so felt slightly resentful that I had to listen to the record and at least try and be half-way fair to it for the review.

Like I said this was originally gonna be a dismissive review, but at certain point my subconscious intervened and took a firm stand on behalf of these three mellifluous if lethargic folk maidens. It happened one morning, round about dawn, that I was in that strange and vulnerable hypnopompic state of mind between sleep and wakefulness, when I heard, or more accurately was haunted by the sensation of, a serene chorus of female voices, siren voices, singing a song that was so comfortingly familiar it was as if I’d known it for years. Except I hadn’t known it for years, I’d known it for about a week or so; waking up with the residue of those blissful voices still ringing in my mind, it took me a minute or so before I realised where it was I’d heard that song before -- at which point I was fairly taken aback. I mean I certainly hadn’t expected to be won over so quickly, and my mind become suddenly so attuned to a record that just the day before I’d struggled to listen to all the way through. Where I had previously perceived an insubstantiality to Bright Morning Stars, an insipidity that seemed reflective of mediocrity and a lack of imagination, I now found myself listening to music that was weightless -- yes -- but that also sounded graceful and inspired: the melodies were not lukewarm and aimless, as I had first taken them to be, instead, transformed by time and the deeper workings of the brain, I appreciated and was able to applaud their delicacy and refinement. 

Folk music is at its best when it sounds timeless -- especially, that is, when the songs themselves are new; that’s the craft. Each record, each performance, is supposed to fit seamlessly into the tradition, so as to ensure that there aren’t any jolts of the sort that used to occur every so often in rock and pop. Indeed once upon a time rock music and popular music used to thrive off of breaks in continuity, these challenges to the old order, only to emerge energised and newly relevant to yet another generation of young people. And so it would seem that the strength of folk music lies in precisely the type of continuity that rock and pop music once used to spurn; it’s not that folk music doesn't progress at all, but that it's always at a far more stalely pace. Pondering over these thoughts I asked myself if that which I had initially identified as the Jennies’ genericity -- and that I took such an immediate reaction against -- might not in the end actually be a point of strength. What matters in the end, at least as far as the genre is concerned, is the deeper resonance of the music, and on that score the Jennies are startlingly successful; they’re a revelation. The tl:dr, then, is that the Wailin’ Jennies are responsible for some very fine music here (in all senses of the word fine): music that manages to seep down into your subconscious and make itself absolutely at home there, without your really realising it and, maybe without you really wanting it -- after all what if you don’t like knitting circles and self satisfied autumnal coffee shops -- and isn’t there something a bit sinister and even a bit frightening about that? (8/10)

ULVER - ATGCLVLSSCAP (2016)

Review by: Graham Warnken
Album assigned by: Christian Sußner

Well, shit.

In the previous two rounds of the Only Solitaire Review Game, my luck wasn’t that great. I was assigned Preservation: Act 1 by The Kinks, which I found mediocre, and Scenes from a Memory by Dream Theater, which was pretty enjoyable if overblown. Neither one was an album that I truly loved or at the very least was intrigued enough by to want to revisit immediately.

It’s perhaps ironic that this album, which is mostly a canvas of ambience rather than a set of songs a la its predecessors, is the one that grabbed me so strongly, but there you are. Perhaps it helps that, unlike The Kinks and Dream Theater, whose reputations precede them, Ulver is a group I was utterly unfamiliar with going into the listening experience. Regardless of the answer, despite its daunting length (80+ minutes), it’s a record I want to revisit almost immediately.

I never would have known this album was mostly recorded live had I walked into it blind. True, it consists of multiple live shows overdubbed on top of one another, and additional studio trickery has been applied, but the sound is so pristine that even then it’s hard to believe any of it was recorded in front of an audience. It’s comprised of dense sonic layers, sweeping synths and chiming bells and swirling guitars and pounding drums piling on top of each other in a sound that’s misty and enticing rather than an overblown Phil Spector mood. Apart from two penultimate tracks, there are no vocal melodies, merely vague chanting and vocalizing that serve to supplement rather than dominate the music.

Without driving melodies or intricate structures, it would be easy for the songs to turn into so much ethereal self-indulgence, noodling their way into a directionless new-age haze, but this thankfully doesn’t happen. Lack of melody doesn’t mean lack of direction or power, and the record has those to spare. It’s not very helpful to say that it sounds like many great SF/F stories read, but that was the thought that kept recurring to me as I listened; there’s an otherworldly, beautiful aether that runs throughout the music. The only place this falls apart comes with the aforementioned duo of penultimate songs, “Nowhere (Sweet Sixteen)” and “Ecclesiastes (A Vernal Catnap)”. It’s here that vocal melodies become prominent, grounding the music in a way that doesn’t really suit it and injecting a force of individual personality where it isn’t wanted. This is especially damaging on the latter track, whose lyrics consist mostly of a recitation of a passage from the titular book of the Bible. Beautiful poetry, obviously, but it can’t help but feel canned when it’s sung over music; it smacks of empty pretension, as if the artist felt he had something important to communicate but fell back on a Biblical text because he couldn’t be bothered to say it in a new, interesting way. Yuck.

This misstep aside, however, this is an engrossing and frequently gorgeous piece of work. It’s already a part of my iTunes library, and I hope upon further listens to uncover a myriad of new things to appreciate.

MESSER CHUPS - Surf Riders From the Swamp Lagoon (2011)

Review by: Alejandro Muñoz G
Album assigned by: Alex Alex

The album’s very first note strikes me as particularly familiar. That rich defiant reverberating guitar sound… where have I heard that before? A tune plays in my head but I can’t remember the name, it’s an instrumental… Found it! It’s 1958’s Rebel-'Rouser by Duane Eddy, the master of twang.

Just like Duane Eddy back in the 50’s, Messer Chups seem to build their career mostly upon instrumentals, though Eddy’s were essentially rockabilly while the Chups’ are fundamentally surf rock. Eddy’s recordings almost always sounded like soundtracks for some Western film, even when they weren’t. Similarly, Messer Chups sound like a soundtrack for some old B movie. There’s an obvious reason for this: most of this album’s melodies are drawn from old films, tv shows or albums (some are instantly recognizable, others are more obscure).

What’s interesting is how all these tunes are reinterpreted and fitted into the Chups' own twisted scenery. Swamp Lagoon is definitely not the Beach Boys' sunny California. This is a darker, weirder and more adventurous world which sounds just like if the B52s were throwing a party in Planet Claire for the creature from the Black Lagoon.

CHRIS CUTLER & FRED FRITH - 2 Gentlemen in Verona (2000)

ASSIGNED BY THE HOST: Great Live Albums
Review by: Francelino Prazeres de Azevedo Filho

Cutler & Frith are a pair of avant-garde rock musicians and multi-instrumentalists, who gathered in the city of Verona to do some live improvisations. This album was a result of that concert, and was then named after one of the lesser-known Shakespeare plays. The track listing pays further homage to that play, as all tracks are titled “Act X, Scene Y” and have subtitles that reference characters and actions as well. Having never seen the play, I cannot say how tight those references are, though.

The “acts” by themselves don’t seem particularly consistent. Act 1 is composed of three “scenes” featuring the duo on the instruments that made them notable, drums for Chris and guitar for Fred. It was a good session of noise-making, overall. The first two scenes in Act 2 feature non-verbal vocals, screeching guitars and a tighter percussion, for a very dark and intense effect. The act mellows out and turns electronic on the third “scene”, unfortunately, and while it later gains on intensity and features some cool guitar wailing, it never follows up on the earlier vibes. I guess that is the flaw of improv music in general, while they touch many good ideas, they don’t carry them till the end.

Acts 3 and 4 are very similar to each other, with the jazziest percussion. Given that they consist of a single track each, they really should have been a single act. Act 5 starts as a sort of sound collage, but then turns into a military march. The encore is bluesy, and perhaps the best thing here after the early Act 2. Frith is a good guitarist, but he plays very little guitar in this album. The main “attraction”, to me, was Cutler’s beats, great throughout the record, and notable particularly as the saving point in the weaker tracks.

Listening to this live, watching the two gents perform all that crazy stuff, would be a great experience. Listening to this in my house hampers the immersion, and I can’t really enjoy this more than an interesting oddity.

THE STOOGES - Metallic K.O. (1976)

ASSIGNED BY THE HOST: Great Live Albums
Review by: Charly Saenz

First thing I love about this album: it was recorded by a fan friend with an open reel machine: Cool. 

Want more? It began its story as a bootleg, in 1976, an important year as Punk scene was just getting stronger. And yes, many listeners will find Punk colors here, but beyond the attitude (and the "explicit" lyrics), what I find here is pure rock and roll.

I hear Jerry Lee Lewis, I hear the Doors (I would almost expect an "I've got my mojo risin'" on "Head On"), lots of raw rawk, no prisoners taken.

"Gimme Danger" is the kind of song you buy an album for. Its mid tempo is hot, it’s menacing, as Iggy, like a tired but anxious monster sings "There's nothing in my dreams/Just some ugly memories".. 

The thing is, obviously the Stooges had some massive fun onstage, and they didn't give a damn for anything except to play and play. Harder, dirtier. That's the spirit ("There's not enough chaos in music", said Jim M.), that's what you do when you're into this rock and roll business; you have fun, you have your say, and eventually they'll come to you, the fans, the believers. Even if it takes years to find out you ever existed.. 

And that's how you get stuff like "Rich Bitch", a song that is almost built brick by brick.. Live. Because it wouldn't work, the guys just kept missing the beat; but you have Iggy and he'll make it work, right? Incredibly long, but who cares? This is a serious bootleg, that's all. 

And there at the very end you get the "Louie Louie" we can only expect from Iggy and his partners. Three minutes of pure blood and sparks, a repetitive guitar, a somehow misplaced piano playing to fill in holes.. Not a plan here, indeed. We're going nowhere, we're just rocking. Gimme more. 

Nah, that's more than enough. Probably the only live albums that should exist are bootlegs, after all. And seven songs long, and let's go home.

Play it loud, baby.

THE MASTER'S APPRENTICES - A Toast to Panama Red (1972)

Review by: Dinar Khayrutdinov
Album assigned by: Syd Spence

It’s 1972, and an Australian band called The Master’s Apprentices fully justifies its name by releasing this album that sounds like a bit of everything from that era – a bit of prog, a bit of hard-rock, a bit of folk-pop, a bit of late 60s psychedelia… Atomic Rooster meets Black Sabbath meets Caravan meets Blue Oyster Cult? Yes, that would pretty much sum up what A Toast to Panama Red sounds like. Don’t get me wrong – these guys were obviously talented and could even come up with some catchy hooks (the chanting coda that closes “Beneath the Sun”), some cool hard-rock riffs (“The Lesson So Listen”), several fine bluesy guitar solos (“Southern Cross”), some “medieval-style” acoustic strumming here and there, plus they could definitely play their instruments really well, but… There is still something missing in all of this, and this something is called originality.

Indeed, there are few things on this album that you haven’t heard before if you’re familiar enough with all the rock and prog classics from the 1967-1972 era. It is pretty much the definition of “by the book” hard/prog rock. The worst offenders are, of course, passages that bear a bit too much resemblance to Black Sabbath (see the beginning of “Games We Play I”). Other tracks – such as “Melodies of St. Kilda” may not strike you as much with “this is clearly a rip-off of this” kind of feeling, but instead they sound like a bunch of influences thrown in a melting pot with only a half-assed attempt at weaving them together into actual songs.

Yeah, songwriting is another weak point of the album, as most of these tracks feel half-baked, and the sudden instrumental solos in the middle of the songs certainly don’t help – they are good on their own but they break the flow of these songs, ultimately messing them up and leading them nowhere.

However, this isn’t such a murky mess of an album as my above evaluation of it would make you believe. There are still a couple of good songs – the ones where everything worked, seemingly against the odds. “Love Is” is a great psychedelic anthem that’s catchy, memorable, well-constructed and bombastic without being too cheesy. The background horns appearing in the chorus midway through the song are a very nice touch, too. Another one that really worked for me was the album closer – “Thyme to Rhyme”. This one is all about production – that amazing acoustic guitar tone and all the bleeping and whistling sounds in the background create a unique psychedelic atmosphere. These two songs are where the Apprentices become the Masters for a short while, and, of course, if the whole album was like this, it would be a great lost gem of the classic rock era. As it is, though, it’s a very flawed and rather derivative but occasionally interesting historic artifact.

P.S.: After completing this review, I look at the title of the album again and realize that they are saluting to a cultivar of cannabis… HEY, MAYBE THAT IS THE KEY TO ENJOYING THIS RECORD! I guess I’ll have to get some hemp then, and listen again, and write a proper review... See you then, I guess.

CAT STEVENS - Foreigner (1973)

Review by: Jimm Derby
Album assigned by: Alejandro Muñoz G

This album was the fourth one released after Stevens’ “comeback” that started in 1970 with the Tea For the Tillerman, an album whose hit single “Wild World” served as a template for that album and its follow-up, Teaser and the Firecat: Acoustic-driven, folksy pop songs with questing, spiritual lyrics and gruff, passionate vocals. The hooks were not obvious, but the real magic was in the interplay of acoustic guitars, string bass, and gospel piano, with touches of Eastern and Mediterranean folk elements and melodies. With his 1972 record Catch Bull at Four he moved into a more ambitious modern sound, with synthesizers, drums, and bigger themes. The hit single from that album was Sitting, and as its title suggests, was a simpler, more meditative song than before, and songs like Angelsea and Can’t Keep It In evince a more overt spirituality that was permeating the music.

 

With Foreigner, Stevens continues with the keyboard-driven, broader sound, and makes his most ambitious track ever with the 18-minute title suite. Like most extended multi-part pieces, the lyrics are all over the place, and it drags a bit in spots, but it moves fairly quickly through the sections. The themes are mostly in the pastoral, gospel pop style, although my favorite was the last “heaven must have programmed you” section, which is a nice spritely piano pop riff repeated over and over. The opening lyrics “There are no words” seems a bit ironic; there are many words over the course of the suite, but the general gist seems to be that Cat is the foreigner, not in the social sense but spiritually, which is in tune with his general progression. He bemoans the vanity of wealth and the pop star lifestyle, and genuinely wants some kind of experience that will bring him home. Overall, I am impressed he attempted to put together a “magnum opus,” but the form doesn’t suit him, like his early cover paintings, his songs are snapshots, not panoramas or landscapes.

 

As for the other four tracks, “The Hurt” was a single and actually has a cool message that “I didn’t know about love until I was hurt,” but it has less spark than the big hits. “How Many Times” wonders about hygiene and shoe maintenance in the midst of habitual behavior, a bit slow and draggy. “Later” has one of his angriest vocals and has more of the mundane musings (“Maybe I’ll fold your clothes later!”) with gospel backup singers and driving piano. And the strange “100 I Dream” has a mystical feel with some liquid guitars and obscure lyrics.

 

This record is a bit of an oddball in his catalog. The others have colorful artwork, at least one hit single, catchy, enigmatic titles and seem to have more going on. The stark, monochromatic photo and minimalistic title belie the “faux-epic” feel within, and I had actually forgotten this record existed before doing this review. As such, it doesn’t stand with his best work, but it’s not a disappointment, either; I guess I’ll stick with my Greatest Hits and Tillerman as my go-to’s for now.

THE SMITHS - Meat Is Murder (1985)

Review by: Michael Strait
Album assigned by: Jaime Vargas Sánchez

I’ve nothing revolutionary to say about The Smiths. Have they ever made a bad album? Probably not. Have they ever even made an album that was anything less than great? Well, I don’t think so. Is this, nonetheless, probably their weakest? Yeah, I guess. “Meat Is Murder” is a bad song, after all, and that’s a rare thing to find on a Smiths album. I’ve no problem with Morrissey preaching his vegetarian beliefs – I’m no vegetarian myself, but if you believe you’re saving lives I think you’re entitled to act like it – but the song is just kinda dreary; it’s got a piano playing a fairly hackneyed, generic little line and some really corny bleating sheep samples here and there, and Morrissey’s really not making much sense. “Death for no reason is murder”? U wot, m8? Murder is the premeditated and unlawful taking of another life – “death for no reason” encompasses anything from manslaughter to death by misadventure. You sure you wanna go through with this line of reasoning, Moz? Was Princess Diana murdered, too? Ah, wait, don’t answer that…

Ehm, anyway, now that I’ve got the bad stuff out of the way I can focus on the cool shit. Firstly, Marr’s being his usual self on this album, which means his guitar not only sounds like it’s glowing but makes everything else on the album sound sorta like it’s glowing as well. He’s really good at weaving notes around all the other members of the band, placing them like candles in just the right places for maximum light coverage. He does it especially well on the penultimate track here, “Barbarism Begins At Home”, in which he and bassist Andy Rourke (their secret weapon) combine their powers to make this really nice interlocking groove that’s powerful enough to carry the song for near-on 7 minutes without changing or getting boring. Throw in some classic Morrissey social miserablism (this time it’s about the dangers of overzealous parental discipline) and you’ve got yerself a classic Smiths song.

There’s a bunch of those in here, actually. My favourite is probably “Nowhere Fast”, which contains one of the classic Morrissey verses (“and when I’m lying in my bed/ I think about life and I think about death/ and neither one particularly ap-peeeaaals to meeeee” – I mean, I know I can relate to that, I dunno about y’all) and a main riff that’s probably the clearest shoutout they ever did to the 60s pop they loved so much. It’s really catchy, really energetic and pretty much instantly memorable, and the same goes for “What She Said”, in which Marr’s guitar slides and falls about like an aeroplane caught in turbulence while Joyce’s drums hit that sweet spot between careful precision and rollicking intensity. I also really like “Rusholme Ruffians”, mostly for that awesome role-swap between Marr and Rourke; Marr’s acoustic on that song spends its time playing a fairly understated rhythm while Rourke’s bass takes up lead melodic duties, and Morrissey has some of his very best self-deprecating, society-deprecating humour here – what’s not to love?

On that front, there’s also “The Headmaster Ritual”, which has one of Marr’s most very gorgeous guitar lines backing up Morrissey as he rips apart his old school. “Belligerent ghouls run Manchester schools/ spineless bastards all…” damn, Morrissey, you couldn’t possibly be bitter, could ya? I’m not gonna lie and say I can relate (I was a veritable teacher’s pet in school) but what’s important is that Morrissey makes me understand his bitterness perfectly, as if he’s baring his soul to me over a few drinks and with a few more exquisite metaphors than usual. Then there’s “I Want The One I Can’t Have”, which is an indispensable part of British rock’s longstanding tradition of class commentary. “A double bed/ and a stalwart lover for sure/ these are the riches of the poor”... it’s subtler than, say, “Shangri-La” or “Common People”, but no less effective for that.

There’s a couple nice slower moments, too. “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” and “Well I Wonder” are both acoustic ballads, though naturally they hardly sound like yer average acoustic ballad. Part of this is down to the production – the acoustic guitar on this album sounds weirdly thin and anemic, which would normally be a criticism but somehow isn’t here – but it’s also got a lot to do with The Smiths’ songwriting chops. The former has some lovely breaks in which Marr is allowed to lay down some gorgeous slices of guitar texture, and both of ‘em have these really pretty extended codas in which Morrissey retreats from the forefront and lets the instrumentation breathe. Relaxing, pleasant stuff, but there’s also enough going on to hold one’s interest if one is paying attention.

Man, I’m sorry for being so boring – I’ve nary a bad thing to say about this record. But hey, what can I say? It’s earned my praise. The Smiths were an almost frighteningly good band, and this, except for the title track, is them at their best – because they were almost never not at their best. Just get their whole discography and be done with it. 

DENIM - Back in Denim (1992)

Review by: Andreas Georgi
Album assigned by: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

I am not familiar with Felt or any of Lawrence’s other work, and had not heard this one before. I have to admit right away that this album did not work for me. The album, released in the early 90’s deliberately harkens back to late 70’s new wave, and the vocals quite obviously imitate Lou Reed’s early work (think “I Feel Free”). The result is harmless enough. There is nothing that grates me. As far as poppy guitar driven new wave style music goes, it has decent hooks. The main problem with it for me is that the singer honestly gets on my nerves. The word “pastiche” comes to mind. This, to me anyway, seems like a fabricated attempt to recreate a sound from an earlier era, but lacking in the energy and creativity of the original. The lyrics certainly have their humorous moments, but the snarkiness and irony seems forced and wears a bit thin after a while.  

 

So, in summary my opinion of this album is lukewarm. Not bad, but not something I will go back to.

TUXEDOMOON - Desire (1981)

Review by: B.b. Fultz
Album assigned by: Tom Hadrian Kovalevsky

I'm not sure how to best review this, because it's pretty experimental. I'm going to default to “safe mode” and write a general impression of each track, since there are only 7.  

"East/Jinx/…/Music #1" (I assume these are section-names?) opens the album on a brooding bass/synth track that reminds me of Bauhaus. A LOT. The beginning is right out of "Hollow Hills." After about a minute and a half, Manzarek-like keyboards spring up abruptly. Of course, Goth borrowed a lot from “baroque” 1960s music by the likes of the Doors, the Zombies, the Animals (et.al) so the two styles go well together. A sax comes in a minute later, making things suddenly jazzy, another layer on the continuing goth motif. After about 4 minutes total the goth transforms into a weirdly middle-eastern sounding (to me) synth/jazz thing. Vocals enter out of nowhere. The voice reminds me of Bowie circa the Berlin trilogy (eg. “Secret Life of Arabia.”) The voice is hoarser though, going almost Joe Strummer-ish at times. The whole thing is an odd amalgam, although after the initial goth/doors intro it loses something. But it gets interesting again around the 10 minute mark, where it goes dissonant and I guess ambiant -- my impression was “Secret Life of Arabia” going backward into “Moss Garden.” It has an Eno type of SOUND (electronic for the sake of being electronic) but it's far more dissonant and trippy than classic-era Eno. Best analogy I can come up with is someone trying to be Pink Floyd and Devo and some unknown third thing all at once. Not sure if they succeeded or not, but it’s interesting to see them try.

"Victims Of The Dance" is another Bauhaus-sounding track, but this time it sounds like one of Bauhaus’s more experimental songs (considering this was released in the same era of classic Bauhaus, I'm wondering how much the two bands influenced each other). The vocal style varies between Murphy (in the chorus) to Bowie (most of the rest). The vocals are probably the most interesting part of this one.

"Incubus" is ... another Bauhaus song?!? Did I upload a Bauhaus album by mistake?  No, the stuff going on in the background is probably too complex and jazzy. Bauhaus usually made their point in a simpler way. Incubus is like “Bauhaus mood” + “DEVO syncopation” x “punk-era Alice Cooper production values” … and this album came out right when Alice was smack in the middle of that era, BTW. Tuxedo Moon seem to have soaked up influences left and right, but I wouldn't call them rote copyers -- their twist on these "early-80s motifs" is pretty unique. 

"Desire" is a mid-tempo song that sounds a little like having a bad drug trip on a merry-go-round and being too disoriented to jump off. This song is an unsteadying experience. There's a deceptively fast synth percussion-track going on underneath it, leading to a sense of fast/not-fast that makes your stomach do a double-take. The more they embellish it with saxes, keyboards, etc, the more they increase that vertigo of being swept up and down and around on a runaway machine. Every instrument on this is like a different part of that machine moving at a different speed and in a different way. Including the vocals. There are many interesting vocal overlays as well, which perfectly suit this song, because everything seems like it’s riding on top of everything else. If this song is "Desire," it's the kind of desire that makes your head spin and your stomach turn. It’s pretty amazing they were able to effectively translate that lovesick feeling into music. 

"Again" might have been called Bowie Again -- the Bowie vocals are back. The background is different this time around, a spacy astral jazz that reminds me a lot of Pink Floyd's "A Saucerful of Secrets" (the song), except sort of collapsing at the end, rather than reaching a melodic resolution. Not a bad song but that collapsed ending is probably the most interesting part.

"In the Name of Talent" is a really interesting one. The intro is slow and jazzy and moody, a lot like something off Pink Floyd’s “More” album … then a guitar comes in and the song enters this weird 3/4 timing and speeds up to a gallop. Yet the vocals are slow and relaxed, drawn out even. There's all of these interesting little melodic “pings & pongs” during the middle instrumental break, like a solo played on some weird alien harp that it would hurt your brain to imagine. I like how this song doesn't sound much like Bowie or Bauhaus, or even the Doors ... it's a weird mix of early techno/dance with ambiant with something else I can quite define. It's more Tuxedo Moon than anyone else, I guess. Which is cool because all the Bowie/Bauhaus tributes were getting redundant. 

"Hollywood for Plywood" is -- oh wow! Cool ! The soundtrack from a high school science film! No, wait, it's some kind of bassy/brassy jazz with swooping strings. Wow, interesting segue there. Both themes have a slick and glossy and slightly cheesy feel to them, especially with all the pretty strings. But where the first theme just sounds like anything from a random 1950s educational film, the second theme sounds like the students got bored, ate large amounts of mind-altering drugs, and tried to reproduce the first part on their school band instruments ... transforming that impossibly optimistic and idealistic 1950s music into some deranged musical mindfuck for the 1960s/70s/80s/beyond. In a way I like this song the best, maybe because after all the unexpected twists and turns of the other songs, this last song still managed to surprise me.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: an album worth hearing. I might have shortened one or two of the songs just a little, because these fellows do tend to draw their grooves out, but usually there's enough change-ups and interesting little touches to keep things interesting. If you like original Goth circa the Bauhaus days, or the Bowie/Eno trilogy, or jazz fusion, or electronica, or even if you just like musicians with an ear for detail, I'd recommend these guys. They sound like other early 80s music I've already heard, yet at the same time, they're not quite like anything else I've ever heard. Pretty cool stuff. 

HAIZEA - Haizea (1977)

Review by: Avery Campbell
Album assigned by: Roland Bruynesteyn

I have to admit, I looked this album up on Wikipedia, saw that they were classified as prog rock and had released their debut in ‘77, and went into this with a little bit of wariness. Of course, it turned out it was my mistake not to read a couple more words over to where it ALSO said they are folk-rock. Actually, I’m not sure I’d even classify it as folk-rock. Lightly progressive folk, maybe. Yes, what we have here is a collection of Basque folk music, all acoustic guitars, light percussion, and woodwinds, with some really lovely singing from Xabier Lasa and Amaia Zubiría.

Happily, Haizea meets my major requirement for mellow folk music: That it not be boring. The moods here are tranquil, and the tempos are slow, but the music is remarkably pretty. Although I can’t understand Basque, the music and signing manages to get across a really lovely, low-key, melancholy mood. The arrangements of the pieces are also very good. Although strongly rooted in guitar-led folk music, they sprinkle enough little psychedelic and progressive touches into keep things interesting to listen to. I’m especially fond of the backwards sounds in "Uxa ixuririk" and "Oreina Bila".

The absolute highlight, however, is the 10 minute closer, Arrosa xuriaren azpian. The band takes its time to really stretch out, creating a powerful mood that you can get lost in, as the song slowly transitions from vocals to repetitive guitar themes and back. It sums up everything this band does, it’s melodic and pretty, and it manages to not be at all boring, a feat that many bands with much busier instrumentation aren’t capable of over this length.

Given that I wasn’t familiar with this band at all before having this review assigned, I was very pleasantly surprised. The music contained herein is remarkably beautiful, pretty, and interesting. I’ll definitely come back to this when I’m in just the right mood.

THE FRANCO EXPERIENCE - The Franco Awakens (2015)

Review by: A. A.
Album assigned by: Jonathan Moss

For reasons you'll come to understand, I've done this review as a PDF file. You can read it here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxrMrgWcYUfLYlg4VlpPa3k0bm8

You can listen to the album here: 
https://thefrancoexperience.bandcamp.com/album/the-franco-awakens

BOREDOMS - Pop Tatari (1992)

Review by: Dominic Linde
Album assigned by: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Pop Tatari starts off with a track called “Noise Ramones”, which sounds nothing like the Ramones. The thing with Boredoms is comparisons don’t work with them. They don’t sound like anybody. However, like the Ramones in 1976, Boredoms is a revolution. Only they have been for decades, and nobody seems to have noticed.

Trying to make sense of this album is a fruitless endeavor, as it jumps from bouts of noise to explosions of sound to bursts of audio. Yelping gives way to extremely distorted guitars which are proceeded by multi-layered percussion. Boredoms has a penchant for the arbitrary, and listening to this album brings to mind experimental excursions such as Faust’s The Faust Tapes and Frank Zappa’s Lumpy Gravy. Compositions are fragmented (and are likely not usually compositions but more probably jams) and stop abruptly. New ideas seemingly come from nowhere. Once you start to figure out a fragment, another interrupts your thoughts.

Boredoms have more structured albums (Super AE being an exceptional example) and those with a more flowing emotion/ambience, but this album has the element of surprise. It’s fun because you never know what the next sound to emit from your speakers will be, and it’s exciting both because it touches places all over the musical spectrum and because it’s mixed in a raw and powerful way. Boredoms always sound like a collective letting loose emotionally and physically, and Pop Tatari is no exception. It’s about as wild as they get, and it’s enthralling.

GRATEFUL DEAD - Terrapin Station (1977)

Review by: Christian Sußner
Album assigned by: B.b. Fultz

The Grateful Dead formed in California in 1965 and generally file under the label psychedelic rock. Their album “Terrapin Station” was released in 1977 and consists of 6 songs, the final centerpiece “Terrapin Station Medley” being the longest.

I think the first song “Estimated Prophet” is a pleasant opener for the album. With its nicely grooving bass, the wah-guitars and the vocals by Bob Weir and Donna Godchaux it creates an optimistic, almost summer-like atmosphere.

The following couple of songs in my opinion can't keep up with the quality of the first track. “Dancing In The Streets” is meant to be a cheerful, well, song for dancing but it's just too simplistic and straightforward to catch my attention. “Passenger” and “Samson and Delilah” are standard folk-rock songs which kind of remind me of CCR without having their power. And “Sunrise” finally which is sung by by Donna Godchaux alone back then may have been a reminiscence to Flower Power but nowadays just sounds pretentious and boring.

But in the end these first five songs seem like a prelude to the final 16-minute-track “Terrapin Station Medley”. In the tracklist of the LP the song is broken down into subsections but I had problems to retrace the intersections while listening as the different parts are quite homogeneous and the transitions flowing. Not like, let's say, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. However, the song is BIG with a relaxed intro including some nicely picked guitar, some soothing solos and finally a long but not lengthy orchestral crescendo including some good co-singing by Donna again, various mood changes, more solos and finally a whole choir chanting the title of the album. I like it!

I too like the production of the whole album (I got the “mastered for iTunes version”, if that makes a difference) because it doesn't sound outdated, au contraire, powerful with an eye for detail. I can't say very much about the lyrics. The bits I understand while listening to the record without paying much attention to the words make me think that they're not worth the effort of listening closer.

As a conclusion I'd say that, although it's not an absolute classic, I enjoyed listening to the album. A good start and an excellent ending with some filler in between but I'll definitely give it another listen after submitting this review. Last question: Which substances does one have to take to get to Terrapin Station and watch these cute turtles from the cover dance?

MARILLION - Anoraknophobia (2001)

Review by: Alex Alex
Album assigned by: Charly Saenz

A long time ago, I remember, my boss bought himself a Rolex watch, made in China. He was immensely delighted in the purchase as the Chinese model was fifty times cheaper than the “original” one and no one of his friends was able to tell the difference. At that time, I remember, I thought my boss lacked the nobility or aristocracy which would have prevented him from having done such a vulgar and tasteless thing. It is only now that I realize how wrong I was.

A second story is that of my friend owning one of those early Android-powered tablets and feeling shame because he could not afford himself an Apple one. To cheer him up I used to tell him that in his cheap noname tablet everything works absolutely the same way as in the expensive IPad. See, I was saying: “Everything works the same as the Apple works”. I was not using the power of reasoning to the fullest – I could not see through the commercial haze. With the Apple market steadily losing its position, we are now able to see that there was and is something else, the design which both the Chinese super-cheap piece of shit and the Apple super-hipster piece of shit both, quite unknowingly, reflect.

Marillion is a group which deserves a real high praise.

Imagine a tribe of Neanderthal people meeting a tribe of some more advanced Neanderthal people. The more advanced tribe sits beside the fire playing some board game of their own invention. Now the less advanced tribe immediately recognizes the fun and the overall positive aspect of the game and wants to play, too. What options do they have?

1) Make up the board, the dices, all the other equipment and start messing up with it, as if playing, hoping the rules will come to them, somehow, during the play

2) Ask their local magician to invent the rules and wait until he does so, though he never ever saw the game

3) Learn the rules and the equipment from the more advanced tribe. In this process the tribes become equal, the tournaments will follow and the rules will soon become even better. (The imminent disadvantage of this, observable only in the computer era is not discussed here).

Marillion is a group which deserves a real high praise.

With my boss at a local bazaar here we are selling 'the legendary cucumbers'. As you are not going to visit our bazaar any time soon the secret, as you already know, is that they are the same as the 'ordinary cucumbers'. If you think my people are idiots it is your people who are them. One thing, however, can be measured in quantity: we do not bother to write 'ordinary', we just write 'cucumbers'. But we always write 'The Legendary Cucumbers'. And my girlfriend tells the legend in three languages.

Marillion is a group which deserves a real high praise.

One day we almost ran out of the legendary cucumbers and we asked the people to bring us some ordinary ones. Then we added them to the (almost exhausted) pile of the Legendary ones so everyone could buy to the fullest. That day no one was even buying the ordinary cucumbers! Everyone took a great pride in the fact that he (or his female) compensated with his own labor for the lack of the legendary fruit. That day the legendary cucumbers cost thrice their usual price! My boss was even able to buy himself an Ipad!

Marillion is a group which deserves a real high praise.