Showing posts with label Phil Collins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phil Collins. Show all posts

September 27, 2023

Phil Collins articles/mentions


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mentions:          
Band Aid ~   
     Do They Know It's Christmas? (12" single)  
Joe Cocker ~ 
    With a Little Help from My Friends       
Rupert Hine ~ Immunity     
Arif Mardin ~ Glass Onion                    
    
     
photo by Rick Rock 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
 
 
 
 
 
 


September 21, 2023

20,000 vinyl LPs 335: Rupert Hine ~ Immunity

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vinyl LP, front cover 
cover design by Michael Ross 
photos by Chris Parker
photo of album cover by Styrous®


Today is the birthday of musician and record producer, Rupert Hine, born on September 21, 1947, Wimbledon, London, the son of a timber merchant who also played drums in a jazz band when he was young. His mother was a Red Cross nurse and an amateur ballet dancer.         


vinyl LP, back cover 
cover design by Michael Ross 
photos by Chris Parker
photo of album cover by Styrous®


He has a sparkling career producing albums for the best of the best; Rush, Kevin Ayers, Tina Turner, Howard Jones, Saga, the Fixx, Bob Geldof, Thompson Twins, Stevie Nicks, Chris de Burgh, Suzanne Vega, Underworld, Duncan Sheik, Formula and Eleanor McEvoy! 
        
Hine has recorded six solo albums as well as many albums with other artists. He produced the soundtrack for the film, Better Off Dead and The Deep End.          

Of all the projects he has been involved with, his gem of New Wave music, the 1981 studio album, Immunity; it is at the pinnicle of them for me and is on my "desert island list"!       
     
Of course, I have a favorite song on the album which is Samsara. There's more to the song than music; it has great depth. The title is a Pali/Sanskrit word that means "wandering" as well as "world," wherein the term connotes "cyclic change" or, less formally, "running around in circles." The "cyclicity of all life, matter, and existence" is a fundamental belief of most Indian religions.        
 
The word in Buddhism and Hinduism is the beginningless cycle of repeated birth, mundane existence and dying again. Samsara is considered to be dukkha, suffering, and in general unsatisfactory and painful, perpetuated by desire and avidya (ignorance), and the resulting karma.         


vinyl LP, back cover detail
cover design by Michael Ross 
photos by Chris Parker
detail photo by Styrous®
 
 
Samsara has a quiet but speedy beat that slows for a time, a melody that is dreamy and beautiful with marimba backing at times. It is New Wave at its finest (link to lyrics below)!
 

 
 
The personel for the album is extraordinary! Phil Collins plays percussion on the title song, Immunity, and Marianne Faithful sings backup in the first cut on the album, I Hang On To My Vertigo, I can relate to this song (link below).             
 

 
 
Trevor Morais plays drums on the album; he is a session player who has recorded with Tina Turner, David Essex, Howard Jones and Björk. Geoffrey Richardson is a British viola player and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Caravan, Murray Head and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.  
 
 







Hine suffered from a number of medical problems, including renal cancer and arrhythmia. He died at his home in Wiltshire on the 4th of June, 2020. He was 72 years old.


  
Tracklist:
       
Side 1:
        
A1 - I Hang On To My Vertigo, Vocals – Marianne Faithfull - 4:40
A2 - Misplaced Love - 4:14
A3 - Samsara - 5:15
A4 - Surface Tension - 4:19
A5 - I Think A Man Will Hang Soon, Drums – Trevor Morais - 4:17
       
Side 2:
       
B1 - Immunity, Percussion – Phil Collins - 3:53
B2 - Another Stranger, Percussion – Phil Collins, Trevor Morais - 4:49
B3 - Psycho Surrender, Clarinet, Recorder – Ollie W. Tayler - 4:20
B4 - Make A Wish, Percussion – Trevor Morais, Viola – Geoffrey Richardson - 5:42
       
Companies, etc.
       
    Phonographic Copyright ℗ – A&M Records Ltd.
    Published By – Rondor Music
    Published By – Petaluma Ink.
    Published By – Essex Music International Ltd.
    Produced At – Farmyard Studios
    Lacquer Cut At – Pye Studios
       
Credits:
       
    Guitar – Phil Palmer
    Lacquer Cut By – Tony Bridge
    Lyrics By – Jeannette-Thérèse Obstoj
    Music By, Arranged By – Rupert Hine
    Producer, Engineer, Mixed By – Stephen W. Tayler
    Producer, Performer – Rupert Hine
       
Notes:
       
Same as Rupert Hine - Immunity by with gold promo-sticker stamped
       
Barcode and Other Identifiers
       
    Rights Society: MCPS/BIEM
    Matrix / Runout (Side 1:): AMLH-68519-A2 tone
    Matrix / Runout (Side 2:): AMLH-68519-B2 tone-pye 
 
Rupert Hine – Immunity
Label:    A&M Records – AMLH 68519
Format:    Vinyl, LP, Album, Promo
Country: UK
Released: 1981
Genre: Electronic, Rock
Style: New Wave

         
Viewfinder links:        
         
Björk        
David Essex               
Marianne Faithful             
Fleetwood Mac             
Rupert Hine          
Howard Jones             
Labyrinthitis ~ a dizzy proposition              
Stevie Nicks         
Record Producers Extraordinaire                         
Samsara lyrics                
Thomson Twins          
Tina Turner        
        
Net links:        
         
Genesis News ~ Ever Heard of Rupert Hine?        
The Guardian ~ Rupert Hine obituary           
Rupert Hine website         
LouderSound ~ Rupert Hine: A regular musical Zelig         
MuZines ~ The Thinking Man's Guide To Production        
The Press ~ Rupert Hine – Immunity        
        
YouTube links:        
         
Cherry Red Records ~ The Rupert Hine Story by Mark Powell (1 hr. 4 Min.)        
The Deep End (full album)                
Immunity (full album)        
       I Hang On To My Vertigo              
       Immunity               
       Samsara         
        
         
        
        
        
Styrous® ~ Thursday, September 21, 2023       
       
 
 


















July 3, 2013

20,000 vinyl LPs 22: Dave Greenslade ~ The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony

album art detail
art work by Patrick Woodroffe
photo of album cover by Styrous©

One of the reasons everyone loves living in the San Francisco Bay Area is the weather. It has one of the mildest, moderate temperature ranges in the world. When it's too cold (50º), those of us who live here say, wait two or three days, it'll warm up. When it's too hot (80º), ditto to cool off. Well, we are now in the sixth day of an extremely rare heat wave of 100° plus temperatures in some parts of the bay area. And there are those who still insist there is no global warming. Yeah! Right!

This event brought to my mind many of the dire predictions in music of the destruction of our planet through war and climate change caused by our leaders indifference to their actions. From the first song I was aware of, "Eve of Destruction" (1965) by Barry McGuire, Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" (1970), with it's refrain, "They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot," and the Manfred Mann's Earth Band song, "Messin'" (1973), to use only a few examples, they've warned us of what we are doing to our world and the consequences of our actions.

The warning of global destruction reached the height of sophistication with the 1979 concept album conceived and written by Patrick Woodroffe with music by Dave Greenslade, The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony (the 5 books of the origin of the universe).

(click on any image to see slideshow)
 
art work by Patrick Woodroffe
photo of album cover by Styrous©


With this album Greenslade abandoned his prog rock background. He took a que from Klaus Schulze and early 70's Tangerine Dream and brilliantly utilized synthesizers to create surrealistic music that was totally unique and chronicles the demise of an indeterminate planet (but read Earth).

The melodies have an amazing range of styles: an echoey, delicate, almost fairy-like sonnet, Glass; Three Brides, a quiet minuet; The Minstrel, a lively tarantella; Vivat Regina, a joyous, exuberant ode to life; the Barcarole, with it's gentle, almost reggae beat; the dreamy, other worldly closing piece, The Tiger and the Dove . . .


The Tiger and the Dove
art work by Patrick Woodroffe
photo of album cover by Styrous©


. . . as well as heart-pounding, driving instrumentals. My favorites are a pair of numbers, Mischief and War. They are actually one song with Mischief, a strong, march-like beat that plows right into War which becomes a heavy, thundering, metallic-sounding dynamo that is quite an experience to hear.

 
 War
art work by Patrick Woodroffe
photo of album by Styrous©


Exile, is an eerie lament, featuring vocoder, bemoaning a world with a long-lifeless, motionless sea, "There is no air, the sea is dead".

Exile
"There is no air, the sea is Dead" 
art work by Patrick Woodroffe
photo of album by Styrous©


The LP record album is actually a 12 ½ inch square hardback book with amazing art work by Patrick Woodroffe. Each and every time I look through the book I see something new I've never noticed before. Unfortunately, with the CD edition, due to it's diminutive size, the subtleties are not readily observable without a magnifying glass; also, the CD version does not have the impact the 12" LP format has (another instance to bemoan the death of the vinyl LP).

art work by Patrick Woodroffe
photo of album cover back by Styrous©


Woodroffe created a whole fantasy world complete with an alien alphabet. The script he invented is fascinating.

alien alphabet designed by Patrick Woodroffe
photo of album by Styrous©


It is ingenious how his art work and Greenslade's music are so well matched. The book is rich with illustrations that are magnificent and exceptionally beautiful . . .

The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony
art work by Patrick Woodroffe
photo of album by Styrous©

photo of album by Styrous©


. . . and weird . . .

photo of album by Styrous©

photo of album by Styrous©

photo of album by Styrous©


The story: 'Pentateuch' concerns the discovery of an abandoned spacecraft drifting in space, and the project to decipher the ideograms in the pentateuch 'document' discovered within it. 

 alien space ship design by Patrick Woodroffe
photo of album by Styrous©


Love makes its appearance . . .

photo of album by Styrous©


and, of course, there are lots of space ships


photo of album by Styrous©


The book is a retelling of the document, as one of our modern day archiologists might very well translate the contents of a Babylonian tablet or an Egyptian papyrus scroll. The story is told in 21 tracks on two vinyl records. 

Track listings:

Side 1

    "Introit" – 4:05
    "Moondance" – 3:10
    "Beltempest" – 2.:41
    "Glass" – 3:02
    "Three Brides" † – 5:56

Side 2

    "Birds & Bats & Dragonflies" ‡ – 3:48
    "Nursery Hymn" ♦ – 3:32
    "The Minstrel" ‡ – 2:42
    "Fresco/Kashrinn" – 2:24
    "Barcarole" † – 3:51
    "Dry Land" – 3:54

Side 3

    "Forest Kingdom" † – 3:53
    "Vivat Regina" – 3:44
    "Scream but Not Heard" – 2:57
    "Mischief" ‡ – 5:36
    "War" †‡ – 3:06

Side 4

    "Lament for the Sea" † – 3:08
    "Miasma Generator" † – 5.23
    "Exile" – 2.33
    "Jubilate" – 3.00
    "The Tiger and the Dove" – 5.35

All titles were composed and played by Dave Greenlade except percussion played by Phil Collins on tracks marked with † and by John Lingwood on tracks marked with ‡. Vocals on track ♦ Nursery Hymn by Kate Greenslade (age 2 years and 6 months).

Dave Greenslade played Polymoog, Prophet 5, Roland Rs202, Yamaha Cs60 Synth, Yamaha Cs80 Synth, Yamaha Cp70b Piano, Arp Explorer, Arp Omni, Cat Synth, Church Organ, Crumar Stringman, Hohner Clavinet, Kitten Synth, Mellotron 400, Minimoog], Vibraphone, Tubular Bells, and Vocoder [Sennheiser] Programmed By [Sds Drum Synth 3].


left: Dave Greenslade      right: Patrick Woodroffe
photos by Alan R. Imberg


Links to music on YouTube:

The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony:
Complete album
Mischief/War
Jubilate
The Tiger and the Dove

Barry McGuire - Eve of Destruction
Joni Mitchel - Big Yellow Taxi
Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Messin'

Links to the amazing art of Patrick Woodroffe can be seen here

This is one of the albums I taped and listened to over and over for the last 30 years so the records were only played twice and are in pristine condition. Even though I bought the CD version many years ago, because of the incredible artwork of the book, when I finally do sell my record collection this album will not go with it.

My many thanks to Dave Greenslade and Patrick Woodroffe for decades of listening and looking pleasure.


Styrous© ~ July 3, 2013

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