For all things TUXEDOMOON, LTM are the boys. Here is another meticulously documented collection of early solo material from one of the original members of the Brussels-oriented band from the San Francisco Music College scene.
STEVEN BROWN is a clarinet and sax player with enough other talents to make a full marching band of possibilities, should he so choose. This collection puts his original PIAS solo release from 1987 together with tracks from a 12" single and other fugitive items like the soundtrack tune "A Gift".
As a collection it is a testament to the unyielding truth that some artists who stray into the popular music field are just too self-knowingly versatile and accomplished to serve their own immediate good. Even the best part of 20 years later this stuff still sounds scarily clever. Funkily syncopated rhythms, jazz orchestrations, ambient and electronic pieces, confessional art-songs … it isn’t easy.
But it is beautiful. "What's it like out in the audience?" he sings, Lou Reed style, almost absent-mindedly, to his own soulful clarinet responses in "Audiences and Stages". He sets up Zappa-like band pieces and scenarios from an inferno of cultural nightmares ("Doe's Day" and "Last Rendezvous"). He does folklorique sound experiments ("The Gift") and he does exquisite piano melodies with harp ("Tori").
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Where fellow TUXEDOMOON artist BLAINE L. REININGER goes straight for the song and the edge of the pop chart, STEVEN BROWN stalks around in the musical wild lands, tracking down the exotic, the strange and the perfidiously enticing.
The truth is that STEVEN BROWN so far exceeds your reviewers ability to describe that I fear you will ignore his talent for want of a guide. Unless, of course you already know STEVEN BROWN'S work. In which case you will have laughed or sneered yourself away from this review already. The manner of your departure depending only on your disposition.
What I can tell you is that once you have tumbled into this cavernous hotel lobby full of mysterious and beautiful strangers, you will forever be haunted. Eighteen tracks and 72 minutes of fine and voraciously varied music. Don't be shy.
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