That wobbly baritone is back! The somewhat polarizing Prince of ArtPop clangs his scepter down upon his sonorous, steely throne and creaks, croons and kinkily cavorts through new glamorously-freaked forests of prickled pizzicato, marching/meandering rhythms, mad-eyed-bending guitars, airy arches of synths, entrancing bass grooves and capricious quails of brass.
4AD released Scott Walker’s Bish Bosch earlier this week. He drifts back to us here, wonderfully-wild, in the spirit of Dada-esque kaleidoscopic characterization.
Listenable? Well… technically yes. Exasperating? Well… Consider this veteran song-craftsman to be a curious subject you might just want to follow with your eyes as some blind-fold errant experimentor in a room full of eclectic instruments, you’re not gonna know quite where he’s going as he zigs, zags, sits, backwards-sommersaults and then shimmies backwards into arms-splayed windmill waywardness… And he’s not going to wait for you to figure out the…what or even the why of the music itself. Wait…a ukulele all of a sudden? Why not!
So he sings: “Sorry I’m so clumsy, take that accidentally in the bollocks for a start….”
See/hear what you think:
This article appears in Dec 5-11, 2012.
