This Is Cinerama
(Spin Art)
Forty-eight minutes worth of singles and extra tracks from David Gedge’s decidedly un-Wedding Present-like post Wedding Present band. This handy disc puts together all four b-sides (the British...so obsessive!) to Cinerama’s debut single “Kerry Kerry”, including the zippy “Au Pair”, which details a married man’s dalliance with said nanny-type (“well, it’s so corny/her world’s turned upside down/’cause he felt horny”) and “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”. Also included are in the band’s second single “Dance, Girl, Dance”, which, like “Kerry” was also on Cine’s ‘Va Va Boom’ debut LP, a single from ‘99, “Pacific” b/w “King’s Cross” and “Manhattan”, a single from earlier this year. There is also a compilation track and one remix, bringing the total to 14. There are also two new singles that don’t appear on this compilation, and a new album ‘Disco Volante’, just out on the Manifesto label. Whew!
Oh yeah, is the music any good? Pretty darn fine, as a matter of fact. In many ways, a good comparison would be to the music of the Jam vs. the music that Jam leader Paul Weller made immediately after leaving that band and forming the Style Council. Cinerama features none of the hyper guitar strum of the Wedding Present, instead he gathers lusher, occasionally trip-hop bits into songs that are primarily romantic in nature. The band’s other main member is Gedge’s longtime girlfriend and former Present roadie Sally Murrell. Many of the duets of romantic longing or betrayal they sing here feel real, perhaps touching the raw nerve of real emotion. But for cleverness and listenability, it is easy to see from This Is Cinerama that the band is easily as potent as anything currently being hyped by the British press these days, and as an added bonus, Wedding Present fans who don’t have to have the sound of an electric guitar to achieve musical satisfaction should dig the whole lot, too.
Stinkweeds, 2000
Showing posts with label Cinerama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cinerama. Show all posts
7.3.08
6.3.08
Cinerama
live @ Black Cat 11.13.2000
Legendary BBC disc jockey John Peel once said that David Gedge wrote “some of the best songs of the Rock and Roll era” and while Peel was referring to the work Gedge did in his former band, The Wedding Present, the songs he has written for Cinerama, his latest project, are just as powerful, though in a softer way. The major difference between Cinerama, who headlined the Black Cat Monday night, and the Wedding Present, are dreamy film-score textures, which take precedent over the clanging, hyper-strummed electric guitars Gedge used to favor. The group’s 50-minute set Monday worked well because the quintet delivered from a middle ground between guitar bluster and swirling keyboard backdrops.
Gedge’s main partner in Cinerama is his longtime girlfriend Sally Murrell, who added keyboards and counter-point vocals to tales of romantic desire and sexual attraction like “Your Time Starts Now” and “Apres-Ski”. Drummer Kari Paavola kept things sprightly, allowing Gedge extend the lilting chorus of “Lollobridgida” and “Dance Girl Dance”, which he introduced as a “disco song”, but charged ahead in a Blur-like fashion. Gedge indulged his professed his love of John Barry film scores and Burt Bacarach heartbreak in songs like “Film”, but it was when he left those kind of sentiments in the lyrics and let the guitars talk---especially “146 Degrees” and “Because I’m Beautiful”---that Cinerama’s premise made perfect sense. The set’s peak came on the final number, a burning version of “Wow” in which Gedge and Simon Cleave scrubbed their guitars with ferocity, demonstrating a blend of mature songwriting and youthful guitar slash that, for a few minutes anyway, made John Peel’s assertion ring true once again.
Washington Post, November 2000
Legendary BBC disc jockey John Peel once said that David Gedge wrote “some of the best songs of the Rock and Roll era” and while Peel was referring to the work Gedge did in his former band, The Wedding Present, the songs he has written for Cinerama, his latest project, are just as powerful, though in a softer way. The major difference between Cinerama, who headlined the Black Cat Monday night, and the Wedding Present, are dreamy film-score textures, which take precedent over the clanging, hyper-strummed electric guitars Gedge used to favor. The group’s 50-minute set Monday worked well because the quintet delivered from a middle ground between guitar bluster and swirling keyboard backdrops.
Gedge’s main partner in Cinerama is his longtime girlfriend Sally Murrell, who added keyboards and counter-point vocals to tales of romantic desire and sexual attraction like “Your Time Starts Now” and “Apres-Ski”. Drummer Kari Paavola kept things sprightly, allowing Gedge extend the lilting chorus of “Lollobridgida” and “Dance Girl Dance”, which he introduced as a “disco song”, but charged ahead in a Blur-like fashion. Gedge indulged his professed his love of John Barry film scores and Burt Bacarach heartbreak in songs like “Film”, but it was when he left those kind of sentiments in the lyrics and let the guitars talk---especially “146 Degrees” and “Because I’m Beautiful”---that Cinerama’s premise made perfect sense. The set’s peak came on the final number, a burning version of “Wow” in which Gedge and Simon Cleave scrubbed their guitars with ferocity, demonstrating a blend of mature songwriting and youthful guitar slash that, for a few minutes anyway, made John Peel’s assertion ring true once again.
Washington Post, November 2000
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