The last of my personal suggestions for the Eighties, after which we return you to your regular schedule..
Over the course of both his #3 and #4 solo albums, Gabriel had been experimenting more and more with World Music, and had started the WoMaD festival (World of Music and Dance) in 1980 that celebrated music from around the world, not just the usual (Western) suspects. Before this album he’d produced a soundtrack for the film Birdy (1985), which re-used some of his prior material and also incorporated some World Music influences.
Here, though, he really leans hard into non-Western musical sources. The album is built upon the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (starring Willem Defoe, and yet another thing that annoyed religious conservatives – not that this is hard to do). Gabriel uses musicians from a wide arena, centred on, but not limited to, the Fertile Crescent area. Thus we get the Armenian doudouk, and the similar Kurdish duduk, woodwind drone-like instruments, drumming from North and West Africa (including Gabriel’s old pal Manu Katché), the ney flute (from everywhere from Egypt to Iran), the kementché (a bowed instrument from around the Black Sea), as well as modern instruments like the good old Fairlight synth. Familiar names from this list like Youssou N’Dour and violinist L Shankar lend their talents.
Tracks tend to be based either around a percussive rhythm – such as A Different Drum (as you might expect), or the drone sounds. The album opens with the gloriously atmospheric drone of a traditional Armenian melody (The Feeling Begins), before drums kick in and the beat picks up. Throughout are some sounds that are deliciously alien to Western ears, but blended in to create subtle and atmospheric tunes redolent with transcendent visions experienced in a desert landscape. Gabriel uses the Pakistani qawwali vocalist Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on the track Passion, traditional Muslim (Sufi) devotional singing on a track focused on the core event of Christian faith, a somewhat daring move. The beauty of the track, I think, transcends any particular dogma, however, and feels like an absolutely pure expression of emotion.
I don’t know how much of the album actually features in the film – I've never seen it, and the album was released a year after the film, but this isn't essential for enjoying the album on its own merit. There’s a follow-up as well, Passion – Sources, that cuts out the Western parts leaving only authentic music from Armenia, Turkey, North Africa and beyond. Coming on the heels of his deeply commercial So, this is a bold departure into uncharted waters. Like many of these Bonus Round recommendations, I’d not listened to this for ages but I think I like it even more now than I did at the time; dare I claim that my musical discernment has become more mature?
And that’s all I’ve got for the Eighties from my personal recommendations. There are, of course, far more and you’ll find plenty on other variations on the “Albums You Must Hear” concept. But as before, this is where I turn it over to you, Dear Reader – any suggestions from your personal favourites for the Eighties?
Tomorrow, don your bucket hat and your baggies, put on your cleanest white trainers, and grab some glowsticks, for we’re off to the Nineties. Yay!
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