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Adrian Belew - Belewprints, The Acoustic Adrian Belew Volume Two

Artist:	Adrian Belew
Title:	Belewprints, The Acoustic Adrian Belew Volume Two
Label:	Discipline Global Mobile DGM 9802
Length(s):	48 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1998
Month of review:	03/1998

Line up

Adrian Belew - all of it, except
a string quartet for the first song.

Tracks

1)	Men In Helicopters	3.09
2)	Cage	2.26
3)	I Remember How To Forget	3.37
4)	Young Lions	3.07
5)	Never Enough	3.32
6)	Things You Hit With A Stick	2.06
7)	Everything	2.57
8)	Big Blue Sun	2.58
9)	Bad Days	2.58
10)	One Of Those Days	3.01
11)	Return Of The Chicken	1.37
12)	Dinosaur	5.44
13)	1967	5.36
14)	Free As A Bird (live)	3.19
15)	Nude Wrestling With A Christmas Tree	2.07

and some DGM info (107MB) on a CDrom track.

Summary

Volume Two of the series. I lack number of one, but let's see what he made of it. Interesting to note that it includes Lennon's Free As A Bird.

The music

This reference to Lennon and the Beatles is not for nothing as some of the more informed readers will now and as anyone can judge from some of the songs of King Crimson on Thrak. Vocally Belew also has some Beatles influences, but still his vocals are very typical. The first track of the album, Men In Helicopters, is not plain acoustic guitar and vocal (as were all tracks on vol. 1), but has a string quartet as accompaniment. Cage is a King Crimson track (Vrooom) with indeed a typical Frippian guitarloop. Rhythmically the song is rather complex, but again though naked, the song stands by itself. I Remember To Forget is rather plain with Beatles-like vocals and just acoustic guitar. Then we come to flowing Young Lions (from the album of the same title, that to my surprise, features the interesting Dutch percussion group Slagerij Van Kampen) with quick flowing percussion and Belews typical drawn out vocals. Never Enough is a fresh song it says. A sixties song with a prominent bass and almost whispered vocals that picks up some power toward the end. According to the booklet the also new Things You Hit With A Stick is Musique Concrete, the musical equivalent of a collage. Well..okay, if he wants this. Everything has percussive piano and reminds me of ELO and it is quite a bouncy track, but I'm not fond of the chorus. Although Big Blue Sun is also quite a sunny track I do am fond of the melody here and the lone piano at the end is a nice touch. Bad Days was written in 1988 when Belew got his piano called Howard. A compelling melody and some nice string bass down deep. After the bluesy (with brushes) One Of These Days we come the next musique concrete piece The Return Of The Chicken, Belew and his assorted toys. The KC track Dinosaur ("ignorance is something I've always been able to excel in") is a great one with nice ironic (or are they?) lyrics: plodding and brutal. After, as Belew says it, the most hardest to play song of the album, 1967, played on the dobro. After the Lennon track Free As A Bird (where he sings do do do at some time, which should be the case, but the audience thinks he forgot the lyrics and laughs) we close the album with Nude Wrestling With A Christmas tree, again some experimentation and general froebeling.

And, oh, don't forget the extensive booklet with all the info on how and when the songs were recorded. Nice to read and to brush up on my knowledge of music and recording of music, which is rather sparse.

Conclusion

I really have a liking for the vocals of Belew. Some people may not like, but ever since I heard the draggingly-sung Heartbeat (KC and also on one of his solo albums) I'm really into it. However, I wasn't very happen with the Beatlesesque tracks on Thrak, but when placed with each other on one single disc, I have no problems whatsoever: good (Beatles/ELO like) singer-songwriter songs, more complex than average, acoustic and well played and sung. The experimental ditties I'm not that fond of. What more can I say? Ehm...well done!