After having gotten tired of waiting for Andy Partridge’s collaborations with Robert Schneider, Robyn Hitchcock, Robert Pollard, and Robben Ford to see the light of day, I’d lost interest in waiting for Partridge to ever do anything but whine about his latest health issue and Colin Moulding‘s retirement from music making, signalling the likely end of XTC. Today, however, I read about Monstrance, an improvised collaboration with Partridge, former XTC organist (and Shreikback leader) Barry Andrews, and a former Shreikback drummer. You can read an interview with Partridge here, and sample a track from the album here. The one track for sampling reminds me of the mellower bits of Miles Davis Bitches Brew-era stuff. It’s something tangible for us XTC diehards.
I believe you can purchase this album through Amazon – a portal to which we link to below.
Pleasant enough. Very wallpaper – I wonder if it would grow on me, the way Bitches Brew did, or become more characterless over time. I’m not the XTC head Mr. Mod is, so I’ll wait to hear more reviews before plunking down money…
I should clarify something, so that too many jeans are not prematurely creamed unnecessarily: When I compared it to Bitches Brew, I meant it had the general vibe of, say, one third of the music on a mellow Bitches Brew track. It’s nowhere near as dense or intense. Somehow, though, I can imagine Joe Zwainul (sp?), Miles, McLaughlin, et al jamming atop that clip.
My brain while reading this post
“hmmm, did Mr Mod mention “Miles Davis Bitches Brew-era stuff?”
…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Andyr, if anyone needs to take the Hear Factor challenge it’s you!
Apropos of very little:
This afternoon, during my neighborhood errands, my iPod reminded me that “Mermaid Smiled” is a far, far better song than “Dear God.”
Thank you.
I agree, but if you call the selection you send him John’s Greatest I-Pod Hits or something similar, he’s much more likely to listen. The guy’s all about how you package it for him.