Customer's review

Losing Its Shape

Scott Walker showed his contempt for the eighties by releasing just half-an-hour of music during the entire decade in the form of this album. A largely textural work, the difficulty in distinguishing between the songs was accentuated by half the tracks being given no real title.
However, fans of ambient music or those not bothered by structure will enjoy the album and while it was certainly a more admirable direction than other artists (say, McCartney) were taking at the time, it was nowhere near the genius of his late-sixties work or the tight nineties masterpiece 'Tilt'; the drifty nature of 'Climate Of Hunter' makes it an ideal album to wake up to (or perhaps stay asleep to) and it remains a unique moment as there would be further years of silence when Eno missed out on producing him. Still, it was nice of Scott to allow Mark Knopfler and Billy Ocean to contribute, enabling them a level of cool they could never hope to achieve in their own careers. Walker, meanwhile, would become as cool as an artist still breathing can get.

Pleasingly Wierd but Accessible Music

I must admit that I don't think I've heard every track on this album , but I am very familiar with most of them , and so this review is based on those that I have heard ( the greater majority ).
Firstly ,if I was to ascribe a genre to this record , I would probably term it 'moderne prog' with monastic overtones . Some of the songs sound close to being 'meditational ' in their drawn out melodies and vocal style . That is not to say that they are not melodic ( after repeated listenings the melodies become more obvious ) but the music has less of the obvious commercialism of Scott's earlier solo albums , which though arguably 'artistically brilliant ' had alot more catchy hooks and choruses than are to be found here .
If I had to compare it to any other record I have heard,I would
probably say it is 'similar' to Peter Gabriel's second album in it's instrumentation and sobriety ,and also bears some resemblance , at times, to some of Nico's post Velvet Underground late 70's period solo work , although it is not really directly comparable to anything else I've heard , even within Scott's own repertoire . However , in artistic terms it seems to hover somewhere between Scott's tracks on the last Walker Brother's album and his following 'experimental' work 'Tilt'.
People hoping for the early pop of the Walker Brothers , or the orchestral grandeur of Wally Stott's arrangements might be dissapointed by this record ,because it is alot more minimal and a bit less 'obvious' than all that .The vocal performance here , though , is remarkable , I think, even by Scott's standards , with him coming across very much as the 'Mad Monk in Isolation' , but in a good way .

Cannot top what has already been said!

I have read the reviews on this album with great interest, obviously the writers know more about Scott than the average Walker Brothers music. Just want to say I endorse all that has been said. A Scott fan since year dot in my very early teens, I have stayed in touch off and on throughout the years, just coming back to him again (Always Coming Back to You) - firt time since Tilt and re-establishing my interest and updating my Scott collection.

I just want to say in answer to 'Where did this guy come from?' query of last reviewer - he has been around for ages - just taken a while to really find himself - and I, for one, am really glad he managed to do it!

No true record collection should be without him and his unique genius!

What?

No really, where on earth did this guy come from. It's amazing, bizzare, but amazing. This album is filled with music that sounds like it should have been released around the 70s at the earliest. There is such a variety of sound in here, from Scott's voice, that at times sounds like something out of Phantom of the Opera, to bass lines and synth that could have been taken from a David Bowie record. You cannot put this in a genre. That makes the fact that it was released mid way through the 20th century even more incredible.

I first heard Sleepwalkers Woman and instantly thought that i had walked into an Anotny and the Johnson's cover. Apparently not. The sound and acoustics of this album aswell are utterly surreal with a hollow echoing sound that implies the whole thing could have been recorded in a cavern. Scott's voice just echoes and reverberates from your speakers filling your ears and not allowing you to switch off.

I simply cannot get my mind round this as it twists and turns your perception of musical possibilities so much, and though short it leaves you with a feeling of utter bewilderment.

I love it. That might say something about me, but this record is utterly incredible, and deserves a listen by any discerning music fan as it will literally blow your mind. Though i dont recomend listening to it in a dark room as you may be . . . well . . . disturbed. But it has an echoing beauty that cannot be faulted.

Buy this album NOW! or regret it for the rest of your life.

Underrated solo work from the godlike genius himself...

'Climate of Hunter' was Scott Walker's sole-release in the 1980s, continuing the directions suggested by Scott's contributions to the final Walker Brothers LP 'Nite Flights' (1978). 'Nite Flights' saw Walker compose again for the first time since flop 'Til the Band Comes In' - the interim seeing inept cover versions ('Many Rivers to Cross' anyone???), flop solo albums, and the reformation of the Walker Brothers - who went from truimphic return with 'No Regrets' to off the register with follow-ups 'Lines' and 'Nite Flights'. Walker's writer's block ended with the four songs on 'Nite Flights', which were probably closer to Bowie than Walker of old ; the terrifying composition 'The Electrician' spelt out the future, Walker making avant-pop with sinister themes (the torture apparent in that song is continued to 'Dealer' here, and features on 1995's masterpiece 'Tilt'). A listen to 'Nite Flights' or 'The Electrician' is the ideal preperation for 'Climate of Hunter' - which is an overlooked album that might even make 'Tilt' make sense to those otherwise confounded.

After reportedly turning down offers to work with Bowie, Eno and David Sylvian (there is a rumour that Walker began to record with Eno, but halted proceedings over Daniel Lanois' hair!!!!) Walker recorded his sole album for Virgin. As 'Tilt' it is produced by Peter Walsh (previously known for Simple Minds' pop-classic 'New Gold Dream, 81, 82, 83, 84') and features a collaboration with Brian Gascoigne who would contribute heavily towards 'Tilt.'

'Climate of Hunter' itself fitted right in with a lot of great music in the 1980s, its sound not far from the Blue Nile, Roxy Music's 'Avalon', Peter Gabriel's '4',Magazine's 'The Correct Use of Soap' & David Sylvian (both Mark Isham and Phil Palmer would work with the latter). Opener 'Rawhide' finds Walker in oblique mode, the song bursting into life with the suitably odd, "Cro-magnon herders will stand in the wind..." which makes as much sense as "The insomniac gnaws in the On-Offs..." - lyrically comparisons to the meticulous nonsense practiced by late period Joyce work (though the feeling of Walker's work here and subsequently seems closer to Samuel Beckett). 'Dealer' is gorgeous, creepy stuff which was once memorably described as "like David Sylvian after being hit by lightning", with lyrics that appear to be related to 'The Electrician': "The windows are ringing...move a circuit on the white and he can't feel a thing..."

Four of the tracks here show that Walker wasn't in the mood for playing the game, plumping for titles such as 'Track Three', 'Track Five', 'Track Six' & 'Track Seven' - Three, Five, and Seven even resemble each other. Walker appears to have come to the end of any pop-formula - 'Track Three (Delayed)' is a catchy chant with a harmony vocal from Billy Ocean (????), while 'Track Five (It's a Starving)' opens with an ambient-guitar piece before the band come in. 'Track Seven (Stump of a Drowner)' like 'Five' opens with a guitar-sequence worthy of 'Gone to Earth' before a similar rhythm comes in - the feeling of these tracks are that Walker is essentially rewriting and exhausting the style of the song 'Nite Flights.'

'Climate of Hunter' is varied in part - 'Sleepwalkers Woman' would fit on one of the Scott-albums with Walker accompanied by strings (...though his voice is beginning to change to a more operatic style apparent on 'Tilt')in territory not that far from solo-classic 'Boy Child.' 'Track Six (Say It)' is much odder, avant fretless bass from John Giblin (Kate Bush, Simple Minds)set to a gothic metronome before the sounds of horses braying and sinister 'Psycho'-strings are employed - the kind of thing Bowie tried on '1.Outside' and that Radiohead faked a lot on 'Kid A/Amnesiac' (it can also be argued that the atmosphere of 'Climate of Hunter' found its way onto U2's 'The Joshua Tree' on such tracks as 'With or Without You' & 'Mothers of the Disappeared'). The most surprising track is the closing cover of Tennessee Williams' 'Blanket Roll Blues' - which was originally sung by Marlon Brando in 'The Fugitive Kind.' This finds Walker accompanied by Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler on his trademark guitar that strikes horror into people like me who thought 'Love Over Gold' & 'Brothers in Arms' were the work of Satan. Instead it's a gorgeously minimal piece that reminds me of David Sylvian's acoustic collaborations with Bill Frissell & the late Derek Bailey. The album concludes with Walker's wonderful delivery of Williams' lyrics, "When I crossed the river/with a heavy blanket roll/I took nobody with me/Not a soul/I took a few provisions/Some for comfort, some for cold/But I took nobody with me/Not a soul."

Great stuff...and even better now it's been remastered. The time is right to rediscover this lost classic from the decade many wrote off - though the better news is that Scott's new album 'The Drift' is to be released by 4AD later this year. Ah, the Godlike Genius of Scott Walker...

Climate of Hunter: Remastered

Customer's review

Losing Its Shape

Pleasingly Wierd but Accessible Music

Cannot top what has already been said!

What?

Underrated solo work from the godlike genius himself...

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