Thursday, July 07, 2011

Spun #4




Ken Nordine
"Stare With Your Ears"
Snail Records SR 1001, 1979

For those already familiar with Ken Nordine from his other more widely available recordings, you'll be surprised at how much sort-of singing he does here. His vocals are still warm and up-front as always, but more rhythmically tight and melodic. And the musical arrangements are not his typical jazz backdrops, but instead dark and atmospheric, sometimes bordering on the more minimal territory of The Residents or even Bohren & Der Club of Gore (I'm thinking mostly of my favorite track here, "Cracks in the Ceiling"). There's also some lighter country pop or blues sounding stuff, but the feeling overall is one of foreboding.

From the back, in his own words:

"Silly sill silly me
writing songs
your ears can see,
songs they are
more said than sung,
talking songs
for solo tongue.
Some are sad and
some are not,
some could make you
laugh a lot,
all were written
by my pen,
call me Nordine
comma Ken."

Find it here.

1 Comments:

Blogger Moahaha said...

Oh no. Finally found it and the link has expired. Please reupload

7:47 AM  

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