second volume just teased on Ape and Swainson's tweets. Shows a small bit of the album cover with what looks like to me a rocket ship, a saw (possibly for seesaw a title of 4 track names announced in a podcast Andy was in), and a drill. No idea how those match the given names he explicitly stated in that older podcast (he names them and even played snippets of them as well as talking about other future volumes some themed) 2nd EP song titles which were played for a brief snippet in the above mentioned interview: Let's Make Everything Love Come On Back See-saw Kiss The Third Rail I'm sorry, I don't recall where the interview was. I believe it was hosted on YouTube. It's been some time since I listened. I think a few months at least or I would link it for you. Only guess I have is that I see a saw so could that be the song seesaw but usually it's one image per song if he's doing what he did last time for the cover. This is such a busy small snippet of the cover album. Unless it's a different approach, I don't know what to make of it. Do you guys have any ideas??
Here is the preorder link (for the vinyl & CD package) https://burningshed.com/store/ape/a...y-failed-songwriting-career-2_cd_vinyl-bundle Tracks are: 1. Seesaw 2. Let’s Make Everything Love 3. Come On Back 4. Love Is The Future Doubt if I'll be ordering the vinyl given the poor quality of the pressing on Vol 1.
Hmm strange. In the interview the track was called kiss the third rail and indeed you can see the train thing licking the third rail. But now I see the track had a new name.
For anyone curious the cypher of the numbers is unlike last time, but instead a = 2 for two of the tracks and a = 3 (b is 4 c is 5 and so on) for the other two.
Apparently new volume spent 8 months just in the vinyl manufacturing pipeline… not as bad as some of the waits we heard about last year (hopefully things are improving) but I wonder if Andy still would have chosen the separate EPs route had he known the gaps between releases would forcibly be so long. I do kind of feel like the original plan as is being followed mostly seems like a defense mechanism if anything - means he doesn’t have to carry the burden of “the long-awaited solo album” so much. That they aren’t available at all digitally also means it’s mostly only diehards hearing these. For someone known to have an ego and be a bit competitive he’s been openly and admittedly insecure in the past about how his creative process suffers without having a band to collaborate with.
I'd be happy to take it all at once. I love Fuzzy Warbles + Hinges. I'm still hoping against hope for a full release of the 12 Flavors of Hercules. We got Cavegirl, give us the rest. I'll buy it happily.
Has anyone heard Volume II yet? I thought Volume I was enjoyable. For demos, I thought they were fleshed out to a degree so that sounded less demo-like. I’ll take what I can get since it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting that Andy Partridge solo album anytime soon.
On the whole, I think it’s better than Volume 1. Seesaw is a decent song which would have fit on Wasp Star. Let’s Make Everything Love absolutely nails the Buble/Cullum genre, whilst managing to be a lot more fun than anything either artist has put out. Come On Back is a lovely pop song, ironically, in the Moulding vein. The last track hasn’t left much of an impression yet, but it’s not horrible. Everything manages to sound polished, in a good way. All in all, I’d say it’s about as good as we could reasonably expect for an artist in his late sixties who doesn’t owe his fans anything. Stick the two My Failed Songwriting Career EPs on an album with Colin’s single and you have a perfectly serviceable late career XTC record, but it wouldn’t be one of their best. Still we’re lucky that most of the band are active again.
I was disappointed with Volume 1. I think Andy has admitted that following XTC with a proper solo album seems like too great an undertaking, so he busies himself with collaborations, production work, releasing his old demos, publicising XTC re-issues and now this. Maid Of Stars demonstrates that he still has it. The rest of it is just........ sort of bang average. I will probably still get Volume 2 'cos it's Partridge, a living almost-legend, things may warm up as we go along.
I wasn't that impressed with Vol 1, but I've just ordered Vol 2 on CD - not bothering with the vinyl this time. Must admit, one of the reasons for wanting it is to combine the two volumes along with a couple of Colin's recent tracks to see if a passable XTC album can be made out of them
This is my take too. I want to support him for the joy the music has given me in last forty odd years. Especially when he (well they all were) was robbed blind in the first fiew years and never got what he was due.
Happy to report that after one listen I consider Vol 2 a vast improvement on Vol 1. "Come On Back" has a really catchy hook, "Let's Make Everything Love" is surprisingly enjoyable given that I wouldn't go anywhere near this jazz-lite genre for anyone else, and "Love Is The Future" is reminiscent of some of Andy's later wig-outs from the Fuzzy Warbles collection. "Seesaw" will need another listen, but this is definitely above the "bang average" (spot on description) of most of Vol 1.
I have to agree, Volume 2 is much better than the first one, really nice that there's an actual drummer this time!
My Failed Christmas Career volume 1 coming: https://burningshed.com/store/ape/andy-partridge_my-failed-christmas-career_cd-and-vinyl-bundle
I'd love to support Andy in whatever he wants to do. I love Fuzzy Warbles... (but I'm glad I waited for the Box Set) but this is just too expensive for 4 tunes... that's around $40 for a CD's worth of 12.
If you buy only the CD instead of the bundle the CD price without VAT will be about $4. I don't think shipment will be $36!
I’ve been purchasing Andy and XTC related releases for what seems like forever. Even if he decides or has input to releasing all of his recent Eps on one album. It won’t the first or last time that I’ve bought music multiple times.
The Christmas Failed Songwriting Ep is fantastic. I was also kind of disappointed with Volume 1, but he rebounded nicely with Volume II, which I thought was superb. All in all, over 3 Eps, we’d have a very good Andy solo album. I guess Andy releasing Eps is the best we can hope for right now.
I was only going to listen to this once to see what it was like and then put it away till Christmas but I’m already playing it again because it’s so good. Easily my favourite post-XTC release by Andy or Colin so far.
