Czukay was a member of Can, and you can expect a continuation of the kind of krautrock beats performed by Can. Here, however, the four tracks (two long, two short) have more of an Afrobeat feel underlying them, thanks in part to Ghanaian percussionist “Rebop” Kwaku Baah; the bulk of the drums and percussion are supplied by fellow-Can member Jaki Liebezeit, who if you recall Tago Mago did some great consistent rhythm (termed "motorik").
The main takeaway from this album, however, is Czukay’s use of sampling, largely from the movies of the title, especially on the track Hollywood Symphony. Although we’ve had bands, notably Pink Floyd, that have dropped in effects and film clips between tracks, and while we’ve had artists using variations on musique concrete, Czukay is, I think, the first one so far to incorporate samples into the music, using repeated phrases as percussive or background vocal elements – a technique that will be employed to a much greater degree by the likes of Art Of Noise, A Tribe Called Quest, or The Avalanches in the future.
There’s a little bit of a Zappa-esque nature to the tracks as well, especially the playful Cool In The Pool which employs sped-up vocals and a light beat. There’s a little bit of world music where Czukay uses extensive samples of Persian music from the radio on the track Persian Love. It’s a bit like Tubular Bells in the way the longer tracks are stitched together to form a mini-symphony.
All in all, it’s a great sound that manages to be experimental without sacrificing listenability.
And that is the end of 1979, and the Seventies completely. The list I was using has The Pretenders in 1979 but although some of their singles were released in 1979, the album wasn’t released until 1980, so I’m transferring them across to start the next decade. Not that it matters too much, but it gives me an excuse to finish the Seventies an album early.
What a decade that was. We started with the explosion of rock out of the end of the Sixties, and end it with the broad range of New Wave that covers pretty much everything from the merging of Jamaican styles with rock, to arty experimentalism. The use of the synth has developed from the rather farty Moog to the much smoother Fairlight, and it’s really felt like a decade where the Brits have led the way and the Americans have struggled to keep up. Bowie dominated, arguably at his apogee in both the Ziggy Stardust and Berlin phases – I don’t think he ever quite equals those albums again. And now we move forward into the era of Reagan and Thatcher (tiny ironic cheer), will album-based music stand up to the onslaught of the rise of the pop-producer machine? (Looking at you, Stock Aitken & Waterman...)
I’m not going straight into the Eighties, though. As I showed at Christmas, there are some albums not on the list that I think are equally as good, important, or just plain interesting, that Dimery didn’t include in his book, as there will inevitably be. And so I’m going to publish five albums from the Seventies (actually six, but two share a slot like last time) that I think ought to have been included. At least three of them, I’m surprised weren’t.
After that, don your thin ties or your lacy gloves (or both, who cares?), your big hair and your shoulder pads, and embrace shallow consumerism, because we’re off to the Eighties.
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