THE QUIET ZONE / THE PLEASURE DOME

I'm into lizards and I'm into snakes and I'm into Peter Hammill probably more than I should be. But I can't help it, see, he amazes me with his quixotic weirdness and those wonderfully wubulous words that sort of make me feel like a sandwich at Karen Carpenter's bedside. I want to be eaten by this music, see, I want to be devoured by it, and yet it NEVER quite does more than nibble, or pull off a bit of crust.

For some reason this record really does come close to pushing my baby carriage over the cliff, though, and I like it...alot. It is a "pop" affair, as far as VDG/G could be POP but that's really not saying much because this is as far away from a Donna Summer/Michael Jackson duet produced by David Foster as it is from England's Newest Hitmakers. This is exceedingly weird music, though I guess it's not as weird as the earlier stuff, but what about the way "The Habits of A Broken Heart" just sort of melts away from it's rather catchy beginning into a...well, whatever that is? I also love the "Sphinx" song, sounds like Bowie meets a Narwhal in Hell, and I'm personally glad that it does, I needed that sound in my life when I first heard this album, and I still do for that matter. It isn't the most played VDG/G record I have, but it gets rotation a few times a year (which is about all anything gets at this point) and I always enjoy it thoroughly, except that one part...you know the one I mean, where that one thing happens and other things that shouldn't happen happen too?

Oh, and also there's a violin. Really, a violin! Makes you almost not miss the saxophone, but not quite. Good stuff, probably not going to make anyone's top ten albums of all time or anything (but it really probably does make someone's list of awesomeness) but a good, solid record from a raving lunatic about the effects of Space. Listen without prejudice was the name of a George Michael album.