Stephen Emmer

This is an almost indescribable piece; there are so many different elements and performances that need to be investigated and so many marriages of music and word or speech that need to be considered and absorbed.
What Emmer seems to be attempting is a marriage of his original music with different media to create an altogether different whole and the listener first has to absorb the whole of the number – the music and the speech or sung words – before going on to try to separate the elements and finally to repeat the combined form: this is not a casual experience!

The first time through the album is a relaxing and almost soporific occurrence as much of the music is pitched at a similar level to the words and the whole runs at a pace that seems designed to slow the listener’s heartbeat and to initiate a full-on hypnotic state but different elements burst through and focus the attention on a word or a simple piece of repeated string section and here is where the quality begins to impart itself to the listener – the music is almost uniquely matched to the other voices as though they were created/performed together but we know this cannot be the case as some of the voices featured have been dead for years.
Some of the numbers deserve particular note: Lou Reed’s intonation of Paul Theroux 'Passengers’ is a superb performance, Sylvie Kristal with Charles Baudelaire’s 'La Beaute' with a sumptuous and emotive backing track, Michael Parkinson’s reading of Thomas Hardy over a shimmering and growling synth backing, Allen Ginsberg reading his own 'Disconnected’ and, best of all, Richard Burton in fine voice reading Gerard Manley Hopkins and Christopher Fry. The musical attachment to these is sympathetic and always designed to add an element or feature that the piece needs to deliver its maximum impact and where the reading is not in English the music often gives clarity to the meaning of the work. The whole in this case is definitely greater than the sum of its parts - notwithstanding that those parts are superb. Tony Visconti’s production is crucial in the delivery of all of the pieces here as well as superb musical performances throughout but the combinations only work because the matching of the music to the rest is sympathetic and is an integral part rather than the focus for the listener.

All of the individual works here have a three dimensional quality and reward the focus and hard work the listener can impart to their function but the whole album delivers a cerebral workout that is rare in art today.