BRAND X: IS THERE ANYTHING ABOUT? (1982)
1) Ipanaemia; 2) A Longer
April; 3) Modern, Noisy And Effective; 4) Swan Song; 5) Is There Anything
About?; 6) Tmiu-Atga.
Yes indeed, the title is a not-so-subtle
reference to the process of «scraping the barrel». Despite the 1982 date (by
which time Brand X no longer even existed as a functioning outfit), most of
these tracks were recorded in 1979, hailing from the same sessions that already
yielded the previous two albums — all but the title track, which dates from an
even earlier period. As if that weren't enough, ʽA Longer Aprilʼ is indeed a
much extended version of ʽAprilʼ from Product,
and ʽModern, Noisy And Effectiveʼ is based on the backing track from the pop
song ʽSohoʼ, also from Product. That
should give you some ideas.
To be fair, seeing as how the band had
effectively run its course, and how that particular brand of fusion had pretty
much worn itself out by the end of the Seventies, it may be a good thing that they did not stick
around to reinvent themselves as an electrofunk party or a synth-pop outfit. At
the very least, Is There Anything About?
does not irritate — nothing on it is really seductive or mind-blowing or of
much use to anybody, but it has the same predictable Brand X style as anything
else the band did, and you do get to hear more Collins percussion (he is
credited for all the drumwork, since the outtakes here do not seem to include
any of the Clark/Pert sessions).
The title track may have originally been
rejected because it does not have a particularly distinct theme, but it does
remind one of the jerky suspense of Unorthodox
Behaviour, before the band settled on an overall smoother style —
Goodsall's sizzling-bubbling wah-wah lines and Jones' «nervous-breakdown-style»
bass rip at each other like crazy, and Phil wacks them both on the back
relentlessly to keep things permanently hot. The difference between this track
and something like ʽIpanaemiaʼ is clearly visible — the latter is a smooth,
easy-going, soft-funk mood piece with soothing Spanish guitar passages and
ambient synthesizer background, high quality elevator muzak with little
artistic pretense. But that's okay. If more elevators played muzak like this,
humanity would only benefit.
On the down side, ʽModern, Noisy And Effectiveʼ
sounds much more silly than ʽSohoʼ, now that the vocals have been wiped out and
replaced by simplistic «happy» keyboards of the «your local TV sitcom» variety,
where you are expected to jump up and down in a fit of artificially induced
happiness as the credits roll on. Unless the effect here is intended to be parodic, this is really
stupid, but, unfortunately, there are no straightforward hints at irony or
sarcasm. And some of the titles continue to be misleading — ʽSwan Songʼ neither
literally nor figuratively sounds
like a swan song, unless Lumley's squeaky synth parts are supposed to remind
you of swans, which they do not (more like pigs than swans, if you ask me).
Some nice harmonies, though.
Still, as a bunch of outtakes to wrap up the
original story of Brand X, this could have been much worse. The band's biggest mistake,
I believe, was when they began to hunt for «beauty» in their music rather than
«mystery» — even if this does not qualify by itself as a sell-out, it sold
short their actual talents and blended them in the already hard-to-tell-apart
mass of instrumental peddlers of the late Seventies. Had they pursued a
somewhat more, let's say, «aggressive» path of action, history would have been
kinder to them. But even so, for four years they did not make one single move
that would definitively place them into the «easy listening» category, and that's
gotta count for something — especially
if your band has Phil Collins in it.
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