Customer Reviews

Desire Caught By the Tail

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been a fan of Adrian Belew since His work with Frank Zappa, who put Belew on the map. However, most of his solo work is a bit too pop for me, and I often find his voice a bit edgy. Which is why I love this album, no pop, no vocals here. Composed and performed entirely with Guitar Synthesizer, Belew makes the guitar sound like anything he wants it to. A very dreamy and eclectic work, but not to the point of being ambient. If you like your music a bit left of center, buy this one.

Subtitled "Instrumental Music for Guitar and Percussion", it's all played by Belew and is some of the most sublime, beautiful music I've heard. It's a bold artistic accomplishment and is a must-listen for serious music appreciators.

Hearing critics and reviewers call this a 'vanity project' in a world so obscenely self-obsessed is maddening, and ridiculous. First of all, nearly every recording ever made had *someone's* name on it somewhere, and someone's artistic vision guiding that recording - every recording is a 'vanity project' in some fashion. It's called self-expression. None of which has anything to do with the quality of this particular album. Sure, it's a little strange, if you mostly listen to music made by artists who got their start playing in shopping malls or on Star Search. But let's zoom back to the real world where lots of people have record collections and have heard a few things not played on top 40 radio for just a moment:
This album is a brilliant and exciting work of instrumental guitar from a master. It's filled with humor and subtlety, and exhibits a wide range of expression and feeling. It's also boldly psychedelic.
I once heard from a friend that Belew has always said that his favorite guitarist is George Harrison. I don't know for sure if that's true, but after I heard this album I believed it. It plays like a perfect companion to Harrison's 'Wonderwall Music', and I've always wondered if it wasn't directly influenced by that seminal soundtrack recording.
If you're familiar with Adrian Belew, you'll know already that his recordings differ from each other greatly in style and tone - it's hard to like them all equally even if you're a fan. This is my personal favorite of Belew's solo work, and one of my favorite recordings of any artist. It's out of print, so if you spot a copy, snap it up!

Released in 1986, this is Adrian Belew's third solo CD. It is only 32 minutes long and the sound quality is good.

This is a purely instrumental album (except for some talking). It is discordant, jazzy and electronic. Much of it has a driving electronic beat. It is a lot like the King Crimson ProjeKt albums, only a little more accessible and less metallic.

There are some excellent tracks and all tracks have some excellent parts to them. However, some of the tracks devolve into noise or silly themes in parts. All in all there is about 20 to 25 minutes of inspired music.

Along with his 1995 release "THE EXPERIMENTAL GUITAR SERIES VOLUME 1: THE GUITAR AS ORCHESTRA" Belew goes all-out with his guitar synthesizer. The results are intersting but not overly entertaining to me. I find this works best as part of a mix rather that as a disc on it's own where the sonics wear on me. Interstingingly, the CD release doesn't include "Joan Miro's Procession Through the Insides of a Purple Antelope Across a Sea of Tuna Fish" which is available on the compilation "Desire Of The Rhno King".

If your are into the possibilities of guitar, or even the possibilities of songs, or music in general, then I would recommend that you pick up this item. If you are a sonic explorer, then I would recommend that you pick up this item. If you are interested in what a single guitar player can do with imagination, talent, technique, and that most complete of arsenals, the electric guitar, then pick up this item. From this point seek out Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Talking Heads, King Crimson, Jerry Harrison, The Bears and then check out the You Tube offering of Martha Wainwright and Adrian performing a live version of Bowie's "Heroes". This guy is the Johnny Depp of guitar. After collecting all of the commercially available material, be sure to go to his website for material available only there. Then see him live. Check him out as he performs solo, trio, quartet, large ensemble backing musician, or in whatever role he is handling guitar duties for a real treat of tricky bent notes and bent perceptions.

This particular recording only gets four stars because it covers material from only three albums. If you can pick up the three albums in their totality, I would advise you to do so. They are all a treat and well worth the monetary outlay. By the by, check out Belew's buddies in The Bears. They also perform and record as The Raisins (old days) and The Psychodots (modern times). These guys perfectly fill-out The Bears, but are killers in their own right.

This kind of beauty inspires mystics. Desire Caught by the Tail is totally atypical of Belew's solo work, which if you're not familiar with, generally falls into three categories: horrible, cheesy soft-pop (e.g., Mr. Music Head; the majority is like this); atonal synthetic nonsense (e.g., The Guitar as Orchestra); and acoustic stuff (none of which I've heard). I don't know how this album happened, but it's a gem. Absolutely gorgeous.

I should add that it's very weird -- if you're looking for something with a steady 4/4 beat and a rhythm guitar track, look elsewhere. Most of my friends don't like it. In fact, Belew himself might not even like it; the thing was made in 1986, and he hasn't done anything even vaguely similar (or as good) since. But then, that happens a lot -- Tchaikovsky said the one piece he'd written that he couldn't stand was the Nutcracker Suite, but everybody knows it's his best.

Anyway, buy it. It will renew your faith in art.

Basically this album plays like a vanity project, and it shows, giving credence to the sentiment raised by cynics of the avant garde genre as being nothing but experimental pettiness. Amongst the half baked ideas lie some predominately aimless noodeling, with unjustified changes, overshadowing what remains as a ghost of a shell for an amazing album here. For every subtly smart move, there are two cheaply implemented moves to stimulate the edginess that this popster was in over his head making. Too bad the lack of direction kills this, for some reason it's synthesis of production elements made it fascinating to study the textures, and sadly wanting much more, length-wise as well..

After two albums of pop music, Adrian Belew's third release, "Desire Caught by the Tail", is a slice of avant-garde instrumental guitar work. My understanding is that the record is processed guitar and percussion only, rendering an enormously wide range of sounds.

The music itself lacks any real sense of unity, wheras sometimes its melodic (opener "Tango Zebra", parts of which would eventually become "Peace on Earth" from "Here"), other times it is decidingly amelodic (the opening to "Beach Creatures Dancing Like Cranes"). Given that I've always found one of Belew's strengths to be writing melodies, I find the former tends to work better than the latter.

The real problem though is that everything on here is a bit incompletely conceived-- virtually all the pieces seem ok for a while but eventually either drag on ("Laughing Man"), fall apart completely ("The Gypsy Zurna") or just can't maintain interest ("z").

This isn't really an essential in Belew's catalog, it's got enough decent material that I won't rate it one star (which I consider basically unlistenable), but there's not much to go on.