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...smile's ok

Hope Blister

3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews) | More about this product

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Product Details

Audio CD (January 12, 1999)
Original Release Date: July 14, 1998
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Mammoth / Pgd
ASIN: B00000HXF5
Also Available in: Audio CD

Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #145,202 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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1. Dagger
2. Only Human
3. Outer Skin
4. Sweet Unknown
5. Let the Happiness In
6. Is Jesus Your Pal?
7. Spider and I
8. Hanky Panky Nohow

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Fans of This Mortal Coil will be excited to learn of this project from 4AD's Ivo Watts-Russell. It's called the Hope Blister, and as with TMC, Watts-Russell is the musical director, although this time out the roster is fixed and led by vocalist Louise Rutkowski. On its debut, ...smile's ok, the group plays ethereal folk and romantic ambient pop that harks back to the early 4AD days. The Hope Blister perform eight cover tunes by the likes of David Sylvian, Heidi Berry, Alison and Jim Shaw of the Cranes, Brian Eno, John Cale, Neil Halstead of Mojave 3, Chris Knox of Tall Dwarfs, and Slow Blow, and the results are strikingly dreamy. These simple tunes are fleshed out with strong atmospheric contrasts, as when a growing wave of distorted effects washes over the stirring strings of "Spider and I" and the way trippy electric guitar wraps around the acoustic guitar of "Only Human." --Bryan Reesman

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the silent breath of emptiness(1)

Customer Reviews

10 Reviews

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

Average Customer Review

3.9 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my desert island selections, June 13, 2004

By A Customer

It's been a few years now since Ivo has recorded this work of art, but it still finds its way onto my stereo at least once a week, sometimes more. The balance of extreme sadness and radiant hope is what all new music composers should strive for, but few succeed.

This album is as brilliant as David Sylvian's "Gone To Earth" and Joy Division's "Closer". Hi art (although in a somewhat gray scale) at its best.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars wow, March 13, 2004

By	A Reader "leschampsmagnetiques" (Portsmouth, NH United States) - See all my reviews

Oh my god - the previous post by A music fan from College Station, TX United States hit the nail perfectly. Really.
If your adolescence was soothed by Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil (of Filigree and Shadow fame especially) and you are still a searcher ... please consider Arvo Part and Gorecki's Symphony No. 3. There you will find the true coming of age that producer Ivo hinted at in the younger mist-dimmed 4 AD days long past that Hope Blister recalls, however hazily. (The Gorecki brings bitter tears to my eyes, so I can only spin it once a year - if that! You owe it to yourself ...)
But Smile's OK is ... well, ok. For those grasping for 4 AD straws, it recalls the "music for people who don't like to go out" days of the best of the label. But it is also pungently reminiscent of the worst of the label - the adolescent self-indulgence and "drama" that the later This Mortal Coil veered toward in "Blood" and even "It'll End in Tears," some of which was brilliant - some of which was fatally self-involved. If you're just pining for the good old days of all-black wardrobes, moon-tans and cardigans (be honest now), you'd do better to re-spin "filigree and shadow" or the Twins' "Treasure" or "Victorialand." Still, I bought this album as an act of loyalty and gratitude - I love the drone of "Is Jesus Your Pal?" and the "strength of strings" in "Spider and I" (where else are you going to find songs so "It'll End in Tears" being recorded - thanks Ivo!!) and I love the melancholy guitar and processed vocals in "Sweet Unknown" - ignoring the high-schoolish premise of the song ("For a while our world seemed right..." c'mon, it's a bit self-involved and Tragic) but I absolutely applaud any label recording totally un-mainstream creatively dark-bright serious-poetic songs to one's self with hardly a drummer in the house. Oh whatever, go ahead, buy this release - "Spider and I" makes it worth it for any true This Mortal Coil fan. You are - you are not - you are - alone. And that's the point, right?

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars aurally rich and evocative..., December 14, 1999

By	Andrea Johnson "jjbodhi" (milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I first read of The Hope Blister in an issue of A.P. (Alternative Press) and immediately purchased the disc. If any are familar with This Mortal Coil, then here is a beautiful continuation. With this album, Ivo has, again, given audiences a glimpse of a place wrung with grace and melancholy. I am a painter, so when in front of a canvas, I put in The Hope Blister to provide me with an aural muse...

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars it's ok.
I somehow missed this when it was released in 1998, well not somehow, I no longer expected anything from 4ad or actively disliked what they were releasing by that time. Read more

Published on August 25, 2004 by K. M. Murphy

3.0 out of 5 stars More Blister Than Hope
I remember first hearing 4AD music during the late 80's when it was difficult to find "deep" music even within the alternative genre. Read more

Published on February 12, 2004

1.0 out of 5 stars A Disappointing 4AD Project Release
After hearing the the beautiful yet dark arrangements of original and cover songs on the This Mortal Coil project, I was expecting something as good on this CD. Read more

Published on October 17, 2002 by Lucius Kwok

5.0 out of 5 stars Music for people that don't like to go out
...That's how producer Ivo Watts-Russell characterizes this studio effort and I must that pretty much sums it up. Mind you, this is not at all negative. Read more

Published on November 9, 2001 by Jan-Willem van Aalst

4.0 out of 5 stars finally, some fine-tuning from 4AD!
I put off purchasing this for months. I was dreading the covers of favorite tracks by other artists, and lead singer Louise's vocals didn't do much for me in earlier This Mortal... Read more

Published on September 29, 1999 by W Mianecke

3.0 out of 5 stars Mmmm...
This doesn't really should be called a reencarnation of This Mortal Coil. It shares a similar sound, but lacks the variety of the former collective (since this is not a collective... Read more

Published on February 25, 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars ... beautiful melancholia ...
"Smile's OK" is stunningly beautiful, albeit in a darker, brooding way. The songs flow _so_ nicely, coaxing the listener to drink the potion again and again, even... Read more

Published on January 16, 1999

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