Zoo Records -- Fire Escape In The Sky - The Godlike Genius Of Scott Walker
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Description
Selling a lot of rarities at very cheap prices inc great P n P
Including more items from the ZOO RECORDS STABLE
Check em all out over the next week or so .....
So ......
Selling here at a silly 0.99p start price - with no reserve
An ultra ultra ultra rare item
Doubly signed by Cope & and Drummond
This Julian Cope ( Teardrop Explodes ) compilation, of his hero SCOTT WALKER'S work .....
Titled
FIRE ESCAPE IN THE SKY
........ ( THE GODLIKE GENIUS OF SCOTT WALKER )
was released on ZOO RECORDS 1980
ZOO TWO
Track listing is ....
Side One:
1. Such a Small Love
2. Big Louise
3. Little Things
4. Plastic Palace People
5. Girls From the Streets
6. It's Raining Today
Side Two:
7. Seventh Seal
8. The Amorous Humphrey Plugg
9. Angels of Ashes
10. Boychild
11. Montague Terrace (In Blue)
12. Always Coming Back to You
Released in 1981 Fire Escape In The Sky is a collection of Scott Walker songs compiled by Julian Cope, the lead singer of The Teardrop Explodes. The songs featured are from Scott's first five albums, all of which were out of print and somewhat difficult to find at the time this record was released. Fire Escape in the Sky did much to revive interest in Walker and played a crucial role in the critical reevaluation of his importance in the early 1980's.
In direct focus here is Walker's own compositions.
This collection was quite deliberately compiled and designed by Cope to remove Scott from any MOR context so that the post-punk crowd (check the stark gray cover) could appreciate his "Godlike Genius".
Many don't own this record and I don't think it has ever been issued on CD ......
Also
Here's a great write up from one of the Guardian writers ...
When this album was released in 1981, Scott Walker's solo career had almost been forgotten. The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore was already an oldies staple, but his solo work was remembered, if at all, as a brief postscript to the Walker Brothers' hit run. These 12 exceptional songs, wrapped in what looked like a grey felt sleeve embossed with olive-green lettering, were buried deep. It is hard to recall just how deep. At the turn of the 80s, Pet Sounds was out of print and the world of reissues was in nappies; hits compilations were the norm, and the Edsel label's groundbreaking, properly annotated collections by the Action, Creation, Merseybeats and Big Three were only just in the racks.
What made Fire Escape in the Sky all the more unusual was that it was put together by a Smash Hits pin-up, the Teardrop Explodes' Julian Cope. He had talked about Walker – as well as then barely mentioned names such as Love, the Left Banke, Tim Buckley – plenty in interviews, but put his balls on the line with this album. One listen to Plastic Palace People or Boychild and you could hear the inspiration for Cope's own Christ Versus Warhol or Tiny Children. It was an act of extraordinary generosity and selflessness. He was a model pop star, a one-man gateway to music's past and future. Sleevenotes would have burst the bubble. Cope was smart enough to unlock the door and walk away – after that you were on your own.
The music, then. Such a Small Love sets the scene with atonal strings, slowly joined by rumbling, executioner's tympani and Walker's dark, rich tones: "He speaks, I don't hear a word he's saying..." Here are 12 tales of broken affairs inspired by and aspiring to the great European cinema of the 50s and 60s: It's Raining Today watches from a train window as the girl walks away; The Amorous Humphrey Plugg dreams, pissed, semi-conscious, of the adoring women he'll never meet while the "telly" and family life conspire to swallow him whole; Angels of Ashes and Boychild, floating on the dense, delicate, Sibelius-influenced arrangements of Wally Stott, are ultimate tales of escape, from home, from life. The scope of this new pop – presented by Cope just as new pop was starting to dominate the charts – is ridiculous, unprecedented.
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It certainly worked for me as a 16-year-old in suburban Surrey with a view across the rooftops of Purley. With Cope's kind help I then discovered Forever Changes, Goodbye and Hello, the original harpsichord-led Walk Away Renee. I was on a trip, like Billy in Plastic Palace People, at school by day but able to escape every night into a world of music I had never heard of or read about. I feel bad now that I couldn't go beyond a certain point with either Cope or Walker's own music (Peggy Suicide and Climate of Hunter were respective lines in the sand for me), but Fire Escape in the Sky has it all, an artefact that is a distinctive blend of pop fandom, mystique and skyscraping ambition.
Happy bidding superstars
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