"Anomaly", Guys new album

[Jules]

Having listened to the audio 'snippets' - sadly it's not my cup of tea at all......

Me neither! Too much synth and I miss the sound of the guitar, but the cover artwork is amazing.

The snippets don't do justice to the songs, sometimes they focus on the synth parts, but those are not that present in the songs as it might look by the snippets.

[superval99]

Having listened to the audio 'snippets' - sadly it's not my cup of tea at all......

Me neither! Too much synth and I miss the sound of the guitar, but the cover artwork is amazing.

The snippets don't do justice to the songs, sometimes they focus on the synth parts, but those are not that present in the songs as it might look by the snippets.

I agree.  The album is much better than the snippets.   Snippets can sometimes be a bad thing when promoting an album!   

[Elin N]

The album needed some listening before I could sort the songs out. From track 2 they kind of glide into eachother the first times, and sometimes it sounds like his mission is to try *all* the effects in the synth   Track one, Shagpile bed, was instant love! Cool melody, personal lyrics, such a soothing voice, and I want to sing along to the chorus. The next two float away on air.., and then you just know from the first notes that "Unlucky number" is a sad one. Again personal, like many of them, but describing a feeling we all have had in our lives. "Anomaly" is also nice, but my favorite number 3 is "Jamestown weed". I need to sort out the darkish lyrics. Sounds like the plant has some symbol meaning? "Silver sun" is a skipper for me,  but the last two are nice. All in all a nice album, even if I had wished for a more "organic" sound and more organ than synth.

[quizzaciously]

Just listened to the snippets and certainly, that's exactly the domain Guy is pushing Mark's music into. More ridiculous sounds, more ambient sounds, more complex multilevel effects, more electronic music traits, more pop-ish sound overall, more ABBA and Roxy Music, more reverb, more cowbell. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm more used for "old" MK, serious MK. Why he lets Guy have so much effect on his music is beyond me. Bring back Chuck, for Mark's sake! It's like Guy had all these dreams and finally got time and money to do it all, his music gets crazier and crazier with time. And Mark got less authoritarian for sure.

It's like you take the amazing keyboard line from "Speedway At Nazareth" that Guy plays and build a whole song around it. Sometimes it's just too much "production" going on. Don't want to hate on Guy as always, you know I'm not a fan of his. It's certainly very quality music, perfectly recorded and everything. And I'll take a proper listen of course, though all that I described can be said even with snippets.

I'd say, more epic songs please, less epic production.

[Elin N]

The snippets don't do the songs justice, but I see your point. Do listen to the whole Unlucky number, in memory of David Stewart, the snippet from the song doesn't represent the song properly
The synth effects and the electronic style feels like a reaction to what he does with MK. Like he wants it to be different, and all his. I don't know how much influence he has, but I am sure of who is the boss of the two.The soundscape may also represent his past, and fits to the lyrics.

[quizzaciously]

The snippets don't do the songs justice, but I see your point. Do listen to the whole Unlucky number, in memory of David Stewart, the snippet from the song doesn't represent the song properly
The synth effects and the electronic style feels like a reaction to what he does with MK. Like he wants it to be different, and all his. I don't know how much influence he has, but I am sure of who is the boss of the two.The soundscape may also represent his past, and fits to the lyrics.

The producer has a major influence on the recording! No matter who's the boss. If the man is on the paper listed as "producer", then he usually had major input. Like some of Paul McCartney's recent albums had a number of producers on each album, as a result, each track sounds like it's a different artist, though the songwriter's the same. So the input is great and my fear is that in Guy's new album we will hear a snippet of Mark's new album and it frightens me, to be honest.

Songs like "Back On The Dance Floor" already sound like Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry, so clearly had some major Guy Fletcher influence. Again, it's probably only my problem and just not my cup of tea. Guy doesn't stand behind me with a pistol demanding me to love his music. I admire him as a musician and music lover and I love his work on Mark's albums, the man's a genius in his own right.

[superval99]

The snippets don't do the songs justice, but I see your point. Do listen to the whole Unlucky number, in memory of David Stewart, the snippet from the song doesn't represent the song properly
The synth effects and the electronic style feels like a reaction to what he does with MK. Like he wants it to be different, and all his. I don't know how much influence he has, but I am sure of who is the boss of the two.The soundscape may also represent his past, and fits to the lyrics.

I agree with you Elin.  Guy has always been a synths orientated musician and I don't see very much influence from him on MK's music.   Anomaly is, apparently, about certain events in Guy's life and he is at present compiling a set of notes about each song, which should explain things more clearly.

@ Quizzaciously - You say that you love Guy's work on MK's albums, but almost in the same breath say that we may hear a snippet from Anomaly on MK's new album and that it frightens you!       "Back On The Dancefloor" was one of my favourite tracks from MK's last album.

[quizzaciously]

The snippets don't do the songs justice, but I see your point. Do listen to the whole Unlucky number, in memory of David Stewart, the snippet from the song doesn't represent the song properly
The synth effects and the electronic style feels like a reaction to what he does with MK. Like he wants it to be different, and all his. I don't know how much influence he has, but I am sure of who is the boss of the two.The soundscape may also represent his past, and fits to the lyrics.

I agree with you Elin.  Guy has always been a synths orientated musician and I don't see very much influence from him on MK's music.   Anomaly is, apparently, about certain events in Guy's life and he is at present compiling a set of notes about each song, which should explain things more clearly.

@ Quizzaciously - You say that you love Guy's work on MK's albums, but almost in the same breath say that we may hear a snippet from Anomaly on MK's new album and that it frightens you!       "Back On The Dancefloor" was one of my favourite tracks from MK's last album.

I meant on the albums where Guy wasn't the producer! Yes, it frightens me because Mark's music for me is always quality over quantity, love over gold, songs over overproduction. Guy's album is heavily produced, not just played. In other words, can you imagine the acoustic unplugged version of "Anomaly"? I think it's almost out of the question. I want to be wrong though.

I'm generally not a fan of heavy production in any shape or form. I never loved the studio versions of Love Over Gold songs... And Mark himself said in the 90s that LOG was terribly overproduced. I'm not a fan of the wall of sound, and people spending years recording albums in the studio tweaking microphone positions and finding another sound to add on track 128 of your arrangement. The Beatles spent so much time recording "Let It Be", only for "Let It Be... Naked" to let it be what it was supposed to be?

In the deluxe edition of the "Get Lucky" album, they ended up giving people sheet music for the song "Get Lucky". Which is a great fingerpicking song, you can play and sing it with one guitar, perfect. In "Down The Road Wherever" they gave us "Back On The Dancefloor" which is impossible to perform on one guitar, or even two. Simply because it's a "production" type of song. That's my problem!

So "Some Place Else" must be one of your favourites from Guy's album because it sounds like "Back On The Dancefloor: Part 2"! The bass and even some of the effects sound almost identical, if not the same at all. And was that MK on guitar there? Don't get me wrong, I like "Back On The Dancefloor", it's not my favourite song of course, but I just want fewer overproduced bits in Mark's new album.

[superval99]

The snippets don't do the songs justice, but I see your point. Do listen to the whole Unlucky number, in memory of David Stewart, the snippet from the song doesn't represent the song properly
The synth effects and the electronic style feels like a reaction to what he does with MK. Like he wants it to be different, and all his. I don't know how much influence he has, but I am sure of who is the boss of the two.The soundscape may also represent his past, and fits to the lyrics.

I agree with you Elin.  Guy has always been a synths orientated musician and I don't see very much influence from him on MK's music.   Anomaly is, apparently, about certain events in Guy's life and he is at present compiling a set of notes about each song, which should explain things more clearly.

@ Quizzaciously - You say that you love Guy's work on MK's albums, but almost in the same breath say that we may hear a snippet from Anomaly on MK's new album and that it frightens you!       "Back On The Dancefloor" was one of my favourite tracks from MK's last album.

I meant on the albums where Guy wasn't the producer! Yes, it frightens me because Mark's music for me is always quality over quantity, love over gold, songs over overproduction. Guy's album is heavily produced, not just played. In other words, can you imagine the acoustic unplugged version of "Anomaly"? I think it's almost out of the question. I want to be wrong though.

I'm generally not a fan of heavy production in any shape or form. I never loved the studio versions of Love Over Gold songs... And Mark himself said in the 90s that LOG was terribly overproduced. I'm not a fan of the wall of sound, and people spending years recording albums in the studio tweaking microphone positions and finding another sound to add on track 128 of your arrangement. The Beatles spent so much time recording "Let It Be", only for "Let It Be... Naked" to let it be what it was supposed to be?
t,
In the deluxe edition of the "Get Lucky" album, they ended up giving people sheet music for the song "Get Lucky". Which is a great fingerpicking song, you can play and sing it with one guitar, perfect. In "Down The Road Wherever" they gave us "Back On The Dancefloor" which is impossible to perform on one guitar, or even two. Simply because it's a "production" type of song. That's my problem!

So "Some Place Else" must be one of your favourites from Guy's album because it sounds like "Back On The Dancefloor: Part 2"! The bass and even some of the effects sound almost identical, if not the same at all. And was that MK on guitar there? Don't get me wrong, I like "Back On The Dancefloor", it's not my favourite song of course, but I just want fewer overproduced bits in Mark's new album.

Thank you for the explanation.  No, I can't imagine Anomaly unplugged at all, I think it would be an impossibility.   I also agree with you about over-production - LOG isn't one of my favourite albums either because I have always thought it was over-produced.  I much prefer to listen to the live versions of Private Investigations and Telegraph Road for instance.

Regarding  "Some Place Else" being "Back On The Dancefloor" Part 2, I hadn't thought of it like that, but I do like it, albeit after lots of listening, but it isn't one of my favourites - that is "Silver Sun" at the moment! As with most of the songs on the album, for me it took a lot of listening time to eventually like them, but not really love them, yet!       BTW the guitarist isn't MK, he's Jeremy Bird!   

[Elin N]

  You are right, Back on the dancefloor is a favorite, but I didn't make any instant connection to Someplace else. The influence from Guy is obvoius on that track, I think... But if Mark has a clear idea of the melody and arrangement and want to keep it "typical Mark", can we still hear the difference between Guy and Chuck? Do you know of any example? (I have never been in a studio..)

[Jules]

I'm quite sure that despite the MK records say are produced by Guy, is Mk who really produce, in musical terms. I'm sure Guy is the one engineering, mixing etc etc etc, but the music producement, the arrangements, is all MK who says to Guy what he wants, and Guy just delivers. I can't imagine Guy telling MK putting synths everywhere and he saying, "Ok, you are the producer", actually I think is the other way around and is MK who says Guy what he needs for every song, and Guy who provides sounds, effects whatever.

[quizzaciously]

I'm quite sure that despite the MK records say are produced by Guy, is Mk who really produce, in musical terms. I'm sure Guy is the one engineering, mixing etc etc etc, but the music producement, the arrangements, is all MK who says to Guy what he wants, and Guy just delivers. I can't imagine Guy telling MK putting synths everywhere and he saying, "Ok, you are the producer", actually I think is the other way around and is MK who says Guy what he needs for every song, and Guy who provides sounds, effects whatever.

So, how would you explain that some of the tracks from Guy's album sound extremely similar to the latest Mark's album? Is that Guy copying Mark or what? I think it's too much of an assumption and easier to deduce that it's just his influence on Mark's music. For some reason, I'm almost sure it's his influence, or else I don't know how to explain how Mark's music was so consistent that many people would say "he's only got one song that he sings over and over again" for 40 years to the abundance of synths and effects.

You can think of a producer as another instrument. He's not necessarily telling what to do, but you've hired him because he has a certain style, and you know that this style may interfere with yours, so it may be a deliberate choice to "spice things up", to change things. Of course, Guy's albums should be similar to Mark's, they work together for more time than I live on this planet. And Mark is infamously overusing his instruments sometimes, which was discussed many times here (putting pedal-steel, folkies, brass sections everywhere). You can only work with somebody for 40 years IF you are different.

The question is, are they both tend to go to the more pop environment, overusing effects and synths, experimenting? That's actually interesting. Mark's albums certainly gravitate towards pop more and more, and I mean pop in a good sense of the word. That, by coincidence, happened after Guy took over producing and increased his influence. This is what I'm saying. Before that, the most "pop" Mark got was probably the cheeeeeeeeezy delay on the voice in "The Dream Of The Drowned Submariner" which sounds like it was taken from Celine Dion outtakes.

[2manyguitars]

I dont actually think Mark and Guy are doing anything different than 30 years ago. Its just an evolution. More equipment at their fingertips.

Song is king.

Take said song and create a soundscape for it using the best music technology available. In 1985 it was the Synclavier and DX7 leading to TMTS, MFN, WW, BIA, etc. Today its VST synths, old stuff, and new melded together to create something unique.

The approach hasn't changed, the only thing thats changes is our ability to accept new sounds and ideas. I myself am not inspired by Marks recent output. Lots of it gets played a few times then nothing for months, years even. When BIA came out (which still sounds like nothing else ever recorded) how many of us were saying 'I dont like these new sounds, they're to poppy etc.

We each have a journey with our favoured artists, and there comes a point where we are just unreceptive to new sounds....