Absolute Classic Masterpieces

Absolute Classic Masterpieces Artist: Felt
Label: Cherry Red UK
Category: Music


Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Format: Import
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1
EAN: 5013929109728
ASIN: B0000242OF


Release Date: 1995-10-31

Absolute Classic Masterpieces


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Tracks:

  1. Primitive Painters
  2. Day the Rain Came Down
  3. My Darkest Light Will Shine
  4. Textile Ranch
  5. Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow
  6. Crystal Ball
  7. Dismantled King Is off the Throne
  8. Fortune
  9. Dance of Deliverance
  10. Stagnant Pool
  11. Red Indians
  12. World Is as Soft as Lace
  13. Penelope Tree
  14. Trails of Colour Dissolve
  15. Evergreen Dazed
  16. Templeroy
  17. Something Sends Me to Sleep
  18. Index

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Album Description

UK compilation for one of the most influential indie bands ever, championed by the likes of Belle & Sebastian, Death In Vegas & St. Etienne. Featuring all the singles released on the Cherry Red label. 18 tracks in all. 1992 release. Standard jewel case.

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars 'that woman'.......2005-12-16

felipe echevarria

'That woman' is Elizabeth Fraser from the Cocteau Twins. Wash your mouth out with soap. A beautiful voice, sadly missed


N

4 out of 5 stars Great, but not good........2004-09-16

The problem I personally have with some of Felt's music is that even the best songs they create often have some little fault or annoyance within the song. It's like owning a nice older Jaguar sedan, the refinement and ride are wonderful, but you have to put up with the little electrical system failings which now stand out because everything else is so perfect and seamless. Take the song "Primitive Painters" for instance. It starts with incredible delicacy, a soaring mix of floating guitar work, then the accomodating drum line, then the nice kind voice, and then suddenly at the chorus a woman's voice flattens the original voice. It's jarring to me, and I want to skip to the next song. They should have reserved her voice for the finale. "Primitive Painters" makes me feel like I'm dying, finally leaving my withered body and encountering the indescribable beautiful Light of Heaven, and then a Light Being's voice says, "It's not your time yet, back you go." Yet I give this song 5 stars because even if a song has moments that send me into ecstasy it's easily worth it. This is some of the best music I own. Do you notice the kind of words used in their song titles? Sunlight. Whirlpool. Golden. Light. Scarlet. King. This is glorious work. The level of the music often matches the aspirations of the words. What you will get if you buy this is a collection of breathtaking, wonderfully arranged songs, matched by a few songs containing passages that mar the refinement.

4 out of 5 stars Not Belle and Sebastian, but still good........2003-03-29

I'll admit it. I got this expecting an 80's version of Belle and Sebastian. That, is not what I got, but I don't regret buying it. It's defiantly got an 80's sound. To me it sounds like a mix between the Smiths and the Cure, with a dash of the Fall. Not a bad combanation. But Belle and Sebastian fans beware, there's not a bit of twee in Felt. Just because they're Stuat Murdoch's favorite band doesn't me they'll be your favorite. But I must admit that they're growing on me, there are some brilliant songs on here like 'Penolope Tree' and 'Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow'.

3 out of 5 stars I Found The Reason.......2002-07-29

Felt made 10 albums and 10 singles in the 1980s. "Absolute Classic Masterpieces" contains a selection of 16 songs from the Cherry Red years. The album actually contains 18 tracks. "Index" was Felt's first single - really a solo recording by Lawrence (Felt's founder and frontman) - released on Shanghai Records in September 1979, and "Dance of Deliverance" is taken from guitarist Maurice Deebank's 1984 solo album "Inner Thought Zone." Neither one deserves more than a cursory listening. Of the 16 other recordings, only four are otherwise unavailable on CD: "Something Sends Me To Sleep," "Trails of Colour Dissolve," "Penelope Tree," and "Fortune." The rest of the tracks can be found on the Cherry Red studio albums. But as luck would have it, these are four of Felt's finest songs, all written around the time of the magnificent and ethereal debut album "Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty" (1982).
"Something Sends Me To Sleep" is a four-track demo recorded for Mike Always's Cherry Red Records in 1981. Its funky off-kilter rhythm, impenetrable lyrics - all half-whispered sub-symbolist gibberish - and archetypal lo-fi production make it a gem of the postpunk, pre-New Romantic period in Britain. Apparently, around this time Mark E. Smith accused Felt of ripping off the Velvet Underground, but Lawrence and the band were more influenced by Wire, Subway Sect, Television, and Smith's own band The Fall. Deebank's classically-trained guitarwork has not yet, for example, degenerated into the frilly arpeggios and excessive soloing that pops up on later Cherry Red recordings.
Recorded the same year as the first album, but presumably while Deebank was on holiday, "Trails Of Colour Dissolve" consists only of Lawrence on guitar and vocals, drummer Gary Ainge on bongos, and producer John Rivers on synth bass. Like The Beatles' "Ballad of John and Yoko" (which featured only John and Paul), the song makes a virtue of artistic simplicity. The maniacal tempo and hallucinatory lyrics more than compensate for the absence of heavy production and endless guitar odysseys.
"Penelope Tree" takes its name from the 1960s fashion model. Recorded in early 1983, before bands like The Smiths, The Go-Betweens, and The Jesus & Mary Chain helped urge the British independent music scene towards a reassessment of the `60s, the song has nothing to do with the period or the model, according to Lawrence. Like the previous single, it's also missing Deebank, and perhaps for that reason, remains one of Felt's most finely executed, if overlooked, songs. (Deebank's shining moment, "Primitive Painters" - the music was entirely written down before Lawrence even touched it - gets trotted out as the acme of Felt's achievement, but their lasting impact will doubtless be the rougher, less-produced tracks).
"Fortune" was originally written and recorded for the band's debut album, but this version is a re-recording done in 1984 as a b-side for "Sunlight Bathed The Golden Glow." Gone is the earlier charm of barely audible singing and tinny guitars, but in its place Lawrence puts in one of his most heartfelt vocal performances, and Deebank is back with a finely contained exposition of his skill at producing layered and dense musical atmosphere. If Felt had a capsule philosophy (which of course, they do not) it is to be found here: "and wisdom is your virtue/ I hear them all scream/ led away to their own fate/ believe in your dreams."
The quality and uniqueness of these four tracks - as well as a handful of others - more than make up for some fairly notable weaknesses in track selection and order. It's a pity "Goldmine Trash" has been deleted from the Cherry Red catalogue, as it includes all the best tracks found on "Absolute Classic Masterpieces," while excluding the weaker ones. (The only exception is Stuart Murdoch's beloved "The World Is As Soft As Lace," also available on "The Splendour Of Fear"). It should be noted, by the way, that not all the singles from the Cherry Red label are included on this compilation. "Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow" is the album version, not the hard-to-find single version with Ivor Raymonde-style - albeit cheap - string section. Similarly, neither "Mexican Bandits," the double A-side with "The World Is As Soft As Lace," nor "My Face Is On Fire," the A-side to "Trails Of Colour Dissolve, are included.

4 out of 5 stars

Music Album:

  1. Silver Lining ~ Bonnie Raitt
  2. Plexiwatt ~ Aminiature
  3. This One's for the Fellows: A Sonic Salute to The Young Fresh Fellows ~ Various Artists
  4. Goin Uptown ~ The Chambers Brothers
  5. Greatest Hits ~ Lenny Kravitz
  6. Funky Dory ~ Rachel Stevens
  7. Afterglow ~ Afterglow
  8. To Play the Part ~ Hamartia
  9. Slow Motion Apocalypse ~ Grotus
  10. In the Trench ~ The Strand

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

The Champs ~ Ximo Tebar

Full Circle ~ Mike Campese

Spiritual ~ The Art Ensemble of Chicago

Back Home ~ Phineas Newborn

Rejoice ~ Toshio (Trio) Ohsumi

The Silences Of The Palace (1994 Film) ~ Anouar Braham

Steel Guitar Magic Hawaiian Style ~ Jack DeMello

Golden Years Of Ethiopian Music ~ Various Artists

Dissimilar Views ~ David Wright

In Concert ~ SHAAM