Burning Blue Soul [Original recording reissued]

The The | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 23, 1999)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: 4ad / Ada
• ASIN: B00000I59D
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #409,403 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Red Cinders in the Sand

2. Song Without an Ending

3. Time Again for the Golden Sunset

4. Icing Up

5. Like a Sun Rising Through My Garden

6. Out of Control

7. Bugle Boy

8. Delirious

9. The River Flows East in Spring

10. Another Boy Drowning

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Morning GIANT, July 30, 2004

By 

Heitor Manuel "incommunicado" (Lisboa, Portugal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burning Blue Soul (Audio CD)

Even for a big admirer of Matt Johnson as me for many years now, even being "Soul Mining" the album I would take to a desert island, and still I often get amazed by the fact that "Burning Blue Soul" was entirely written and performed by a 16?! years old boy. His first work is brilliant and almost as consistent as the masterpiece above mentioned, Infected, Dusk or Mind Bomb. Not a single non-inspired moment, already the finest of the lyrics you can find on a musical album, all sorts of sounds and melodies gathered in a way so unique.
"Red Cinders in the Sand" is an instrumental display of talent, "Time Again for the Golden Sunset" or "Another Boy Drowning" are among my favourite songs from the band's catalogue. In resume, another timeless album by The The, indispensable in the collection of any fan of the band.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Soundscapes; Johnson Was Never Better, July 2, 2000

By 

Michael Topper (Pacific Palisades, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burning Blue Soul (Audio CD)

One of the finest psych releases of the 1980s, "Burning Blue Soul" came out of left field at the start of the decade as a Matt Johnson solo effort, and was only listed as a The The album after he made good with that group. In spite of the connection with that later project, "Burning Blue Soul" sounds quite distinct from successors like "Soul Mining" or "Dusk", and infinitely more experimental. The "songs" are largely just Johnson singing his soul-baring and darkly humorous lyrics over a hypnotically strummed electric guitar, reverbed beyond all bounds of logic, on top of which layer upon layer of extremely tripped-out tape loops (recorded backwards, sped up, slowed down, reverbed, etc) are gradually added to create a sonic tapestry that is dense and ethereal. Johnson knows when to keep his sounds from becoming too chaotic, and the almost mathematical precision with which he uses them to create moods of melancholy, wonder and just plain weirdness boggles the mind. His later albums with The The relied on far more conventional song structures and harsher "80s" sounds from the bass and drums (and yet they still sounded more alternative than the majority of product from that era), but he never again returned to the isolated, floating world he created here.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Really Burns, June 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Burning Blue Soul (Audio CD)

I first had the chance to listen to The The with Mind Bomb. Now I got all The The albums. Burning Blue Soul is the first album and the beginning of The The. All the instruments are played by Matt Johnson. The tracks are inividually highly emotional but the ordering makes it a whole masterpiece. The general atmosphere is pessimistic and incurable. I feel this emerges from the search of Matt Johnson for some musical expressability. The album starts with a very rythmical piece which resembles the evolution of man from tribes to civilized societies. Then deals with the awry social order and encounters of our times. If you like to feel music (not just listening) and think listening music is something serious I strongly recommend this album.