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The Fireman is Paul McCartney and this dude “Youth” who played bass for Killing Joke and gained more rep with his “ambient house” collaborations with Orb.
Unbeknownst to moi, they started collaborating in 1993 and have realease a total of three albums, 1994’s Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest and 1998’s Rushes. I haven’t heard a single thing from these but understand they are heavily electronic and might not even include lyrics.
Can anyone shed some light on these for the class?
This new one Electric Arguments showed up highly praised on eMusic. I gave it a whirl and like it more than anything he has been involved with in a long, long time. It starts out pretty far away from electronic but by the second half gets pretty deep.
Track 1 Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight
Very little in the way of anything Beatles, at least not overtly except for:
Track 2 Two Magpies
And by Track 11 we’ve gotten here: Is This Love
I found this YouTube that samples from each track in order:
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I thought it was a young band trying to sound older, but it is an older act trying out his idea of sounding “young”.
That “Two Magpies” song is okay.
The last track is the one I can best handle. It reminds me a bit of a late track on Crowded House’s Together Alone – Sunny Pop Guy goes about as Eno as a Sunny Pop Guy’s gonna get! I’d much rather hear a whole McCartney album of stuff like “Is This Love” than a whole album of his regular stuff.
Speaking of Youth, is he the same guy who produced Together Alone, or is that someone named Flood – and do one of those dudes do some work with U2?
You’re right Mr. Mod, Youth produced Together Alone. Flood’s the guy who’s worked with U2, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, and Smashing Pumpkins.
When the word leaked that Sir Paul was indeed the Fireman, I snagged the Strawberries record back in the mid 90s. It’s not too bad as far as ambient electronic music is concerned. It’s nothing I would put on and absorb, but it makes for decent background noise. I suppose that’s the nature of ambient. I don;t have the recent one or the previous one. I remember when it came out, it had a naked lady on the cover a la Blind Faith. I do have the Twin Freaks record which is a might bit more interesting to me.
I would say these are vanity projects only for completists (like me) and fans of that particular genre. Sadly, I think I listen to Press To Play more often than The Fireman.
TB
The second half of this is more electronic and the more interesting. Tracks 9-13 sound like more an equal collaboration between the two are the best of the bunch. If you’re on eMusic you I’d recommend those for fans of this type of thing.
I’ve got some ambient-house-rave-trance-brothers type stuff but like dub music I like it better when some uptight Brit gives it some structure and carbonation.