The Kinks - Album by Album (song by song)

This last track is a bit underwhelming. You'd expect a big climax, but Dave and Russ choose to let the album dissipate like fog when the sun comes up. Mirrors led me to expect the last couple of tracks would be very ambitious (an interlude, then two climatic epics, that's what I thought it'd be), but they go all the way with their spiritual concept and the songs dissolve, the music becomes spatial and more abstract, like reaching a different level of consciousness, which is fine in theory but not quite as engaging as I'd (they'd?) hoped. So yeah, I suppose I'm 100% in line with our soon to be back in Australia leader, the "project" starts strong, with a superb highlights, and then it kind of floats by me, before disappearing into the cosmos.

 

Much like the rest of the project, the final track would be fine as background music but doesn't say much to me as a song or part of a story.

There were some pieces - mostly in the first half that might justify further investigation, but overall it's not something I would be rushing out to buy - even if it were actually available!

 

I did listen to this by its entirety and I have to say again that this has to be the most un-Kinks like album that we have discussed in this thread. This is not a complaint, just my opinion. I knew beforehand of Dave and his son’s involvement in various John Carpenter movie soundtracks, which this album basically is. It’s good that my fellow Avids have found merit in it and parts of it do sound professional, but’s it’s something that I’m really not interested in. As for those liner notes, it seems like a proposal for a sci fi movie that I wouldn’t watch unless there’s a silhouette of two robots and a guy on the bottom of the screem, erm, screen making snide comments.

 

Valley Of The Shadows

As I mentioned the other day, I felt Mirrors probably offered up the more climatic ending of the album. Valley Of The Shadows starts with some industrial noises which I guess is the soundtrack to the aftermath of the ultimate destruction of the villain and then a middle-eastern violin-like synth melody. That then morphs into a fast-paced section with synth drum groove and some vocalizations and spoken word bits which I am supposing is the heroes and their group celebrating the end of one era and then heading into a new one. “Forever As One……Always Be Together”.
And they lived happily ever after.
Or maybe not. The actual ending of the album as we have here leaves this with some ambiguity and doubt.



Two Worlds

I found this to be a mostly engaging listen of an album with much to like in terms of musical motifs and melodies. Some of these are complex and very angular which I used as an adjective yesterday. Some may even appear to be freeform and random on the surface, but sometimes they are deeper and by actual design which will reveal themselves later after repeated listens. There are also some mostly straightforward melodies and progressions that had they been recorded using guitars instead of synths and samples and had lyrics and choruses may have exposed themselves a little more obviously. In other words, there are a few pop/rock songs in here in disguise (in the skies?).

I’m happy Russ reached out to his father at this point in their lives to pursue another project. It probably did Dave a world (no pun intended) of good as he seemed to be in between musical album projects (as far as we are aware). In contrast to the obvious and probably only other true album that can be compared within the catalog, Two Worlds is light-years ahead of Purusha And The Spiritual Planet in many ways and on several levels. Russ was older and more experienced, the compositional approach is more developed and coordinated with several progressions and melodic ideas used as recurring passages and themes in a longer form musical concept, the instrumentation is much more modern, the production is top notch and sounds fully professionally recorded and engineered in a real studio. This album works better as a full listen and not song by song. The titles of each track are irrelevant.

As I mentioned at the start of this album, this one had escaped me in real time and I was not aware of its existence until earlier this year while poking around Discogs, so this ends up being a surprise bonus album of new material for me that I find to be a worthy addition to the overall rich and varied catalog of music these guys have given us for decades. I’m not sure why they felt the need to release this under the “The Aschere Project” pseudonym or band name as opposed to using their real names. This is probably why I (and probably many others) missed this back at the time of release. They did the same thing for the Purusha album where they used “Crystal Radio” as the moniker. (As an aside I scanned and added the CD inner booklet for the Purusha album to Discogs as it was not there previously, so if anyone without the CDs wants to compare the “stories” and connections between these two albums, have at it. Neither story is necessary to the albums per se, the music itself tells the real stories.) Dave and Russ will work together again on another album later in the decade that will be released under their own names and will be a much more back down to Earth rock album.

 

Two Worlds

I agree with this 100%. I really had trouble thinking about this as separate “songs.” Maybe the individual tracks aren’t strong enough for me as songs, but I did listen to the whole album a couple of times straight through and enjoyed it. I like the dreamy ethereal nature of it, and it relaxes me, but there is enough of interest going on that it doesn’t put me to sleep. I might even come back to it occasionally, not something I thought about doing with Purusha. Would I be listening to this if it wasn’t Dave Davies, maybe not. For what it’s worth The Aschere Project’s monthly listeners on Spotify more than doubled since we started talking about it here - sadly that means it went from 6 monthly listeners to 13. So let’s see, that’s two for me, @donstemple at least one…….

 

Mirrors / Blessed of All Nights / Valley of the Shadows

For me, the apex or climax of the album seems to have been during We Are the Ancestors. With the last 3 tracks, we get a bit of a reprise of earlier melodies, and then more atmospheric soundscapes. I assume this is a happy ending to the story? While listening to Blessed of All Nights, and the slow chords and (synth) orchestration, I was sort of reminded of some of Dennis Wilson’s contributions to those early 70s Beach Boys albums. Only with spoken vocals on top. Certainly a unique sound…

Overall this was an interesting departure. Likely won’t go back to it much, but it was better to listen to this in 15-20 minute chunks. They aren’t really songs, more like movements within the overall project. Glad Dave and Russel were able to complete it to their satisfaction.

Does that mean we need to listen to it next month too, to keep those numbers up?

 

Valley of the Shadows

Quite a dense track, rich in atmosphere and complexity. The intensity gradually builds with layers of synthesizers and cryptic spoken word vocals. A very good album closer.

The Aschere Project

I totally missed this album when it was new and began listening to it on Spotify when we started discussing it here on the forum. Instrumental, ambient music is not something I usually listen to (though Steve Kilbey of The Church has released a few side project albums in that field that I really enjoy) and if Dave hadn't been involved in this record I don't think I would have given it a chance at all, but I have really enjoyed listening to this album. It is very atmospheric and full of textures and layers. I like the dreamy mood of the album and whereas a soundtrack score can be amazing if one has seen the movie and know what scenes the music belong to, this album creates a lot of images in my head when I have listened to it. I haven't yet read the story that is part of the album and I hesitate to do so as I think I prefer to let my own associations create images to the music rather than pondering how the storyline connects to the music. I do think the album works better as a whole unit, to my ears it should be listened to in its entirety and I think it works best when listened to late at night.
This album is obviously a very long way away from anything by The Kinks or Dave on his regular solo albums, but I'm very happy that Dave and Russ did this record and followed their artistic vision without worrying about commercial potential. It must have been a thrill for them to make a record together and it's great to get to hear this side of Dave's creativity.

 

Ray Davies Glastonbury 2010.

Originally here we were scheduled to have a show from Denmark, but I cannot find it anywhere at all, so we're going to do a quick look at the Glastonbury show that we have seen clips of previously on the thread.

I'm not going to labour on it, because we have seen most of the kind of thing these 2010 shows were about, and as I say we have looked at a couple of things from the Choral era shows and releases, but the Glastonbury show seems quite significant in many ways.

The Setlist

I Need You
Dedicated Follower of Fashion
I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Till the End of the Day
After the Fall
20th Century Man
Sunny Afternoon
You Really Got Me
Shangri-La
Victoria
See My Friends
Working Man's Café
Johnny Thunder
Village Green Preservation Society
Lola
Waterloo Sunset

encore
Days
All Day And All Of The Night

It makes me wonder looking at this setlist, if this is more like the shows from the tour... and then I wonder if the choir was involved during the whole set....

The show prior to this one is very different again, and it is a corker of a set.
May 25th 2010 at Sheffield City Hall

This Is Where I Belong
I Need You
Where Have All the Good Times Gone
Autumn Almanac
In a Moment
Starstruck
Harry Rag
Dedicated Follower of Fashion
See My Friends
I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl
Too Much on My Mind
A Well Respected Man
Sunny Afternoon
Waterloo Sunset
Victoria
20th Century Man
The Tourist
Morphine Song
Come Dancing
Celluloid Heroes
After The Fall
Tired Of Waiting For You
Set Me Free
All Day And All Of The Night
Days
Lola
You Really Got Me

and from a quick look, this seems like a fairly standard 2010 UK tour set... it's a good one by the looks of it.

Anyway, the First Available video of Glastonbury 2010 is

Till The End Of The Day.

This is a straight rock song, with a straight rock band and they punch it out... which seems to answer the choir question... and to some degree it makes me wonder if the whole tour was like that, because the Sheffield show doesn't seem to be laid out for a choir show, looking at the setlist.

This is a nice punchy rock song that gives great value.

 

You Really Got Me.

The other version was clearly snipped, but here we have a boot version that works well and gives a better idea of how the show went...
We open with a bit of interlude jazzy type music and then we move into a mellow piece of music after Ray introduces the choir, and then we punch in for a solid version of this.

 

Victoria.

Again we have the choir arrangement, and we have heard this a couple of times now, and it's nice to see the show in this instance.

 

Lola.

This one is interesting in that the choir is still there, but they are just sitting enjoying the show.
Ray has clearly lost some range and power, but delivers the song in a convincing manner and the thing that matters, the crowd is loving every minute of it.

 

Waterloo Sunset.

I can only imagine how special this show was to a bunch of people in the crowd that were sharing this experience.
Again we're familiar with this version and it works beautifully, and it has a certain poignancy in England... in my mind at least.

 

Days.

The first encore, according to the setlist I could find.

Again we're familiar with it, and this did come out during the course of the thread...
Again, there seems a joy and significance here.... but perhaps that is just my perception of it.

 

Waterloo Sunset - Days.

This straight footage appears to show that there wasn't really an encore...

 

Interview with Ray before the set.

I'm not sure if this is 2010, but I found it and thought it would be cool to add it in.

 

Valley Of The Shadows

Great title of course which immediately reminds one of the valley of the shadow of death line from a certain book that offers comfort and a certain final togetherness.

I like best the synth Middle Eastern horns and the high vocal which for me recalls Jeff Buckley.
I'm not sure all the parts fit seamlessly together but this production as a whole is quite an achievement and production.

 

You are certainly not Will Robinson.... Carusoe with those comments here.

 

Ray finally made it to Glastonbury 40 years after the Kinks were supposed to headline the very first one, but didn’t show up (an advertisement is posted on the thread about great record ads). From what is posted here, it seems to be a nice, crowd pleasing festival favorite set, w/the usual suspects augmented by the choir. What it lacked in post 1971 material, it gained in “Waterloo Sunset” and “Days”.

 

Great to see Ray at Glastonbury. Though the setlist relies heavily on mostly Kinks material, it is done as pure homage to the legacy of the Kinks. He literally performs "Waterloo Sunset" as a tribute to "a great band - The Kinks". And, of course, the material is first rate. We have seen this ensemble - Ray, the band and the choir - playing these songs in these arrangements but I am never bored hearing another set of performances. They sound great. In today's selections, the setlist looks back but it is still a very current show. By that I mean Ray is totally invested as a performer. He loves these songs, performing them and he loves his audience. His band is tight and play well as an ensemble, and the choir is a slight twist to how all of this is presented. And I think at a legendary music festival like Glastonbury, this would have been a moving experience if you were in the audience. In today's songs, the revved-up beginning is punchy and certainly rocks but the one-two punch of the ballads "Waterloo Sunset" and "Days" are the highlights here and are the best showcase for the entire ensemble including the choir.

 

I like Ray with his Buddy Holly glasses, it works very well. The footage is impressive, with the usual Glastonbury sea of people. I'm almost embarrassed to say that Days wins the day, by and large. I wish the choir would stop singing at some point, so that we could hear the other choir, the crowd, a bit clearer, belting it out like only a British crowd ever could.

 

The Kinks may not have ended up playing Glastonbury in 1970, but they did eventually play there in 1993. Also, this wasn’t Ray’s first time solo at GB either, as he’d previously played in 1997. Unfortunately no video evidence of the 1993 show appears to be available online and only one song (WS) from 1997:

 

Is no one going to mention the fact that Ray’s 2010 Glastonbury show ended up functioning as a de facto Peter Quaife tribute show, as PQ had passed just 4 days earlier? As well as just before WS and by implication’Days’ in the video above, Ray apparently also mentioned Pete before See My Friends and the VGPS medley, as recounted in this article:

Ray Davies pays tribute to late Kinks bassist Pete Quaife at Glastonbury

this was a very high profile show for Ray and the PQ element ended up adding to the significance of the occasion. There’s almost an echo of Brian Jones presence at the Stones Hyde Park 1969 show about it.

 

I should have mentioned that I guess, but we had chatted about it earlier in the thread.

 

Glastonbury Festival 2010

Yes we know this one but a little revisit is welcome even if it reminds me that my factory boot DVD of the entire show is bronzed and will no longer even play the opening tracks as they had on arrival.

Victoria is always is a treat
Lola is for the crowd
Till The End Of The Day revs up the band
You Really Got Me has got me so I could sleep at night

With Waterloo Sunset & Days we arrive at the top two seeds for yet another tournament er concert and the former is a wonderful shared celebration and f-i-n-e and at it's conclusion i notice Ray mouth to one of the other musicians the one word of ...... Days!

The introduction is poignant and so priceless as Ray loses some of his composure, has a pregnant pause for Pete, puts (brass) a hand in pocket and hits a sway to steel himself.
From here on in yes sir, no sir there would have to be an awfull fall from grace not to score all 10's even from the East German judges and so the Sun-sets on Waterloo for the Day!

At this point i must echo that i have long thought that had i been there i would have found it to be an ecstatic (exotic & English) experience for this Joey from across the waters.

 

Looks like The Kinks theatrical years are being reissued, I just saw on the official Facebook site had a link saying that the back catalog was available for a special price for a short time and amongst the pics of the various covers was Pres Act 1, I click on the link and it says preorders are available for the years 73 to 75 which includes both Preservations, Soap Opera and Schoolboys, I could not get to the preorder page though.