Desire Caught by the Tail

Artist: Adrian Belew
Label: Polygram Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 042284284325
EAN: 0042284284325
ASIN: B000001FVJ

Release Date: 1990-06-15

Desire Caught by the Tail

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Tracks:

Tango Zebra
Laughing Man
The Gypsy Zurna
Portrait Of Margaret
Beach Creatures Dancing Like Cranes
At The Seaside Cafe
Guernica
'Z'

Similar Items:

Young Lions
Mr. Music Head
Coming Attractions
Lone Rhino/Twang Bar King
Here

Album Description

Adrian Belew used his third release from 1986 to blatantly demonstrate his love and talent for avant-garde guitar work, but many of the tracks on Desire Caught By the Tail take his passion for boisterous distortion, warped notes, thick sound, and highly e

Customer Reviews:

A few decent ideas underneath all fluff.......2006-05-24

Basically this album plays like a vanity project, and it shows, giving credence to the sentiment raised by cynics of the avant garde genre as being nothing but experimental pettiness. Amongst the half baked ideas lie some predominately aimless noodeling, with unjustified changes, overshadowing what remains as a ghost of a shell for an amazing album here. For every subtly smart move, there are two cheaply implemented moves to stimulate the edginess that this popster was in over his head making. Too bad the lack of direction kills this, for some reason it's synthesis of production elements made it fascinating to study the textures, and sadly wanting much more, length-wise as well..

Interesting but ultimately unengaging........2005-07-12

After two albums of pop music, Adrian Belew's third release, "Desire Caught by the Tail", is a slice of avant-garde instrumental guitar work. My understanding is that the record is processed guitar and percussion only, rendering an enormously wide range of sounds.

The music itself lacks any real sense of unity, wheras sometimes its melodic (opener "Tango Zebra", parts of which would eventually become "Peace on Earth" from "Here"), other times it is decidingly amelodic (the opening to "Beach Creatures Dancing Like Cranes"). Given that I've always found one of Belew's strengths to be writing melodies, I find the former tends to work better than the latter.

The real problem though is that everything on here is a bit incompletely conceived-- virtually all the pieces seem ok for a while but eventually either drag on ("Laughing Man"), fall apart completely ("The Gypsy Zurna") or just can't maintain interest ("z").

This isn't really an essential in Belew's catalog, it's got enough decent material that I won't rate it one star (which I consider basically unlistenable), but there's not much to go on.

Good but not my cup of tea.......2005-05-18

Along with his 1995 release "THE EXPERIMENTAL GUITAR SERIES VOLUME 1: THE GUITAR AS ORCHESTRA" Belew goes all-out with his guitar synthesizer. The results are intersting but not overly entertaining to me. I find this works best as part of a mix rather that as a disc on it's own where the sonics wear on me. Interstingingly, the CD release doesn't include "Joan Miro's Procession Through the Insides of a Purple Antelope Across a Sea of Tuna Fish" which is available on the compilation "Desire Of The Rhno King".

Belew's most eclectic work.......2001-01-28

I've been a fan of Adrian Belew since His work with Frank Zappa, who put Belew on the map. However, most of his solo work is a bit too pop for me, and I often find his voice a bit edgy. Which is why I love this album, no pop, no vocals here. Composed and performed entirely with Guitar Synthesizer, Belew makes the guitar sound like anything he wants it to. A very dreamy and eclectic work, but not to the point of being ambient. If you like your music a bit left of center, buy this one.

Heavenly.......1999-12-19

This kind of beauty inspires mystics. Desire Caught by the Tail is totally atypical of Belew's solo work, which if you're not familiar with, generally falls into three categories: horrible, cheesy soft-pop (e.g., Mr. Music Head; the majority is like this); atonal synthetic nonsense (e.g., The Guitar as Orchestra); and acoustic stuff (none of which I've heard). I don't know how this album happened, but it's a gem. Absolutely gorgeous.

I should add that it's very weird -- if you're looking for something with a steady 4/4 beat and a rhythm guitar track, look elsewhere. Most of my friends don't like it. In fact, Belew himself might not even like it; the thing was made in 1986, and he hasn't done anything even vaguely similar (or as good) since. But then, that happens a lot -- Tchaikovsky said the one piece he'd written that he couldn't stand was the Nutcracker Suite, but everybody knows it's his best.

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