This is another reissue in the magnificent collection being created by James Nice at LTM. Tracks 1 to 10 are the original album, recorded in Brussels during the winter of 1988/89 and released on les Disques du Crepuscules in the spring of 1989. There was a unity of studio production here, and less of the stage performer with heartbreak violin. Restrained is not a word you would normally link to Reininger. But the discipline of shorter songs and a more market oriented presentation (no solo violin at all I think) does enforce a certain sort of economy: indeed, these are the nearest to pop songs that I've heard from Reininger. So, maybe it's worth pondering which pop songs were attracting the attention of the stylish ones in the UK at that time? Context is very telling when we're considering a man so far ahead of his time.
Apart from the wonderful "John Kettley (Is A Weatherman)" by TRIBE OF TOFFS, DEPECHE MODE had re-released "Everything Counts" to reach 22 in February. HOLLY JOHNSON had struck off without FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD and took "Love Train" to number 4. DURAN DURAN were at 9 with "All She Wants Is" for a week in January. But otherwise, dull dull dull, as a number of genres flickered their last and Cliff hoovered up the Christmas pennies yet again (Mistletoe and Wine).
Against such miserable fare, the songs of Book of Hours are ravishingly well stuffed. Each one glistens with boldly expansive themes, lavish synth parts, knowing lyrics and soaring tunes. The magnificent "Software Pancake House" has a huge horn section and unstoppable rhythm section, carrying a bizarre monologue from Reininger's culturally twitching imagination (including a space craft which "routinely exploded off camera" and the Mohair Sushi Gods – Bowie-eclipsing pop stars for another, better age) It has something of the Philip K. Dick about it – with more luxury and less despair. Just imagine the video. "Letter from Home" is lovely haunting thing that makes me shiver.
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One great surprise is the Marty Robins tune "El Paso", in album and single versions. It is a fine tune, and the hyperdramatic story fits perfectly with the grandiosity and confidence of the whole album. It’s Reininger lording it in Hollywood, if it’s anything. These songs are big, bold, sumptuously recorded and fabulously evocative of a finer grander life than you or I, dear reader, will ever know. Not in a comic book rich kids Duran Duran style on the boat with the birds. But in a filmic, Scott Fitzgerald, darkly underpinned flourish of wealth, dreams, passion and (always) disappointment.
Tracks 11 to 15 are singles and a film tune "The Flying Game", used by Karamaghilos in "Black Out". There's no shift in quality or style though, it just means we get to stay for a full hour in the company of a master of his craft. One of Nice's significant contributions to this series has been the way that additional tracks sit happily with the core material. Remastering, careful choices and artful sequencing are very well done.
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