Customer Reviews

Spooked

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Years ago, I became aquainted with the works of Robyn Hitchcock through his first band the Soft Boys and his early solo works. Over the years the quality on his albums thinned out to the point that I basically lost interest. What originally began as a sureal, strange outlook spelled out in his lyrics, turned into a forced, quirky and basically unispired bore. Though all his albums would contain at least a couple gems, overall he seemed to have identified his audience and pandered to it.

Then along comes SPOOKED. Hitchcock has teemed with rustic Americana meisters Gillian Welch and David Rawlings for what is his most inspired record in years. Though one may think (or hope) that the record would be overshadowed by the American couple's folksie ways, what results is crystal-clear, classic Robyn Hitchcock. Starting with the absurdily great TELEVISION, right through to the quiet closing FLANAGAN'S SONG, this is a solid collection of songs that mingle wit, whimsey and menace into a sparkling cocktail. DEMON'S AND FIENDS, IF YOU KNOW TIME and WE'RE GONNA LIVE IN THE TREES are excellent, and the cover of Dylan's TRYING TO GET TO HEAVEN stands tall against the version from TIME OUT OF MIND.

Anyone who has been charmed in the past by Hitchcock's magic would be well advised to check in with SPOOKED. Not only one of the best things from Robyn Hitchcock, but one of the best from 2004.

Mighty fine a-pickin'-and-a-singin'! Buy it for Robyn, cherish it for Gillian and David and the intimate, acoustic production. The closing harmonies on "Television" are hauntingly beautiful ... you owe it to yourself to experience this track.

This is by far the best Robyn Hitchcock solo album in a decade. While I was a big fan of Nextdoorland, I have found his more recent solo albums to be good, but not great. Every new album has had its moments, but none really gave me that "feel" of an early Robyn Hitchcock album.

Spooked is just fantastic. It is a mostly acoustic album in the vein of EYE or I Often Dream of Trains. The songs are just wonderful, and the arrangements and production are sharp and engaging. My favorite has got to be "We're Going To Live in The Trees" followed by "Television" and "If You Know Time".

If you are a hardcore Robyn Hitchcock fan, or one of those people who thought he was "kind of okay" when he opened up for REM, or one of those people who "kind of remember that Baloon Man song", this album is for you. :)

This will be yet another great Robyn Hitchcock CD that will fly under the radar of everyone, and only his lifelong fans will enjoy it. That's sad, too, because this one is really special. This is a collaboration with Nashville's Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who are also among the most underrated and underappreciated artists today. The result is beautiful; I wish that Gillian and David could play on every Robyn CD. I think this CD is more polished than his last CD, "Luxor," but it takes up where "Luxor" left off. The tracks that stand out after a couple of listens are "Television" "English Girl" "Creeped Out" "Flanagan's Song" and the Dylan cover. But every track is interesting. In a parallel universe, Robyn would be a millionaire, and each CD would be multi-platinum--and Hillary Duff would be selling her CDs one at a time on the Internet. But there's a part of me that is glad that Robyn isn't known and understood by the masses. If you are reading this you are undoubtedly one of Robyn's fans, so you'll know what I'm talking about. By the way, Robyn will be in Austin on October 30th, 2004. If anyone is out there reading this who is going to the show--look for me. I'll be the tall guy with the Soft Boys t-shirt on.

Maybe there's something about having Hitchcock in your name where everything you do has to be a little on the weird side, and Spooked is definately one of Robin's weirder ones.

Like all of his albums, Spooked revels in the addition of interesting muscianship from others and has that definative twist to it. Unlike most of his albums, however, this album has an Indie feel to it. The cover art is one of Robyn's paintings, the linear notes are short and to the point. It doesn't even list track lengths or have lyrics anywhere. It's this kind of nostalga that the album posesses that makes it so magical. While the sound is unpolished, the engineering is fantastic, and it sounds like 2004 effects applied to a 1969 album. It seems like Robyn called up some friends and said "I'm thinking about going down to the studio today to lay down some tracks, wanna come?".

You have to listen to this with headphones on, because much like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, there's so much going on that if you aren't listening closely, you'll miss alot of what's happening on the album.

As for the songs themselves, they're great. Television, English Girl, Sometimes a Blonde, and Full Moon In My Soul are all reasons why this is an album you'll be listening to long after the next generations of Britney Spears clones have come and gone.

If you're a Robin fan, you won't want to miss this one.

Listen, you: this is a preposterously good record. Robyn's gotten quieter somehow--and that is a brilliant, brilliant thing. I have read about Gillian Welch and David Rawlings (who join him in a way that makes for a truly spooky collab). "Television" and "If you know time" are right up there with the best of Hitchcock's songs. if you are even slightly obsessive, you'll not stop listening to this compelling disc for days and days. I have all his records; this one is shockingly good. I love (if you need to reference my tastes) to XTC, The Black Watch, Olivia Tremor Control, New Order, Swervedriver, Guided by Voices...stuff like that...Bye, bye.

On SPOOKED, Hitchcock has created a more accessible collection than is normally his wont. OK, he does start off with a love song to television, but it is really a song of appalling loneliness that is sweetened by the delightful chorus of "binga bonga bing bong bing bong."(It sounds better when he sings it, trust me.) The setting for the CD is a gentle one; this is really a lovely collection of songs of romance and emotion. There isn't the distance here that Hitchcock generally creates. You feel that you can get a bit closer here and a feeling of warmth pervades the music. There are so many elements of delight here that they seem to make mockery of the title. "Listening to the whimsical "We're Gonna Live in the Trees," and you just want to join them. (I'll think I'll skip the suggested diet of mealworms.) Hitchcock hasn't lost all his edge here. There are "Demons and Fiends" here and a "Creeped Out" American girl and even a spoken word warning ("Welcome to Earth") But, by the end "Everybody Needs Love," seems to sum up this recording and I find it one of Hitchcock's strongest.

This is a beautiful, subtle album that seeps in after a few listens--the kind of record that just gets better the more you get to know it. Stylistically, it is an interesting hybrid between Hitchcock's brand of surrealism and a more rooted, earthy sound from Gilian Welch and David Rawlings. On first listen, I thought the opener ("television") seemed a bit too airy and arbitrary, but, like I say, the more you listen to this record, the more you appreciate its subtle inventiveness. The second tune (If You Know Time) has a great droney, looping riff with a nice mix of a tinnie sounding mandolin(?) against the bass and vocals. Creeped Out has a nice edgie blues-vamp undercurrent, Full Moon In My Soul is a smooth head-nodder with a great lyric ('you can have my cigarrettes and mister you can have my cough'). The Dylan cover, though seemingly an odd choice, shows Robyn's depth--he makes that song his own. There isn't a weak tune on here, and it's much more than just consistent--you'll be listening to this disc 30 years from now.

Although Robyn Hitchcock has long removed himself from the "harder" material of The Soft Boys and his Egyptians records, I found "Spooked" to be the most consistent and beautiful of his "mellower" records since "I Often Dream of Trains" and "Eye". I've been into RH for about 20 years (with a perference to his earlier material) and I know that a lot of his records contain hit and miss material, but as a fan, I anticipate taking the crunchy with the smooth. However, Spooked ranks with Robyn's best. The amazing Dylan cover, "Trying to Get to Heaven..." the romping "We're Gonna Live in the Trees" the beautiful "Full Moon in My Soul" (which would not sound out of place on a Wilco record) and "Flanagan's Song" which recalls Eye's "Linctus House" all elevate this record from a 4 to a 5 in my book.

In 2003 on the heels of his release of the sparse and slightly chilly Luxor, Hitchcock went to his first Gillian Welch show. Blown away by the duo's adherence to the organic - two guitars, two voices - he approached the (unbeknownst to him) longtime fans . It seems that Hitchcock had signed Rawlings' guitar at a 1989 in-store appearance in Boston and actually exchanged phone numbers. The partnership came to realization in Nashville a few months later, and in just six days the lovely, intimate, and typically eccentric Spooked was born. Produced by Rawlings and born from hours of improvisation originals, Dylan covers, and Hitchcocks typical weirdness, Spooked calls back to his unpredictable I Often Dream of Trains period. Hitchcocks signature references are all over the place, but they are cradled in Rawlings' signature guitar and Welch's dulcet harmonies, takes the listener to a place that renders them amiably nostalgic rather than blatantly surreal. On the first track, "Television," Rawlings plays a lead that wouldn't seem out of place on Welch's debut, and it being placed along side of Hitchcock's "bing a bon a bing bong" is astounding, but when the trio harmonize, the results are quietly majestic. Much of the record harkens back to Hitchcock's colorful musical past. "Everybody Needs Love," , sounds like it could have come off of Element of Light, and "Creeped Out" could have been the set along side "Brenda's Iron Sledge." This is Hitchcock's most rewarding and creative endeavor since Respect, and the fact that Rawlings and Welch are there makes the collaboration seems fate driven. It's a testament to all three that makes Spooked the left-field gem that it is.