fbpx
Wikipedia

69 (album)

69 is the debut album by British band A.R. Kane, released in 1988 on Rough Trade Records and produced by the band with additional co-production from Ray Shulman. Following the release of their acclaimed Lollita and Up Home! EPs, 69 developed the experimental "dream pop" style pioneered by the duo, blending elements of dub, acid rock, jazz, noise, and pop.

69
Studio album by
Released20 June 1988[1]
Recorded1988
StudioH.ark Studio
Genre
Length40:26
LabelRough Trade
Producer
A.R. Kane chronology
69
(1988)
"i"
(1989)

69 reached number 1 on the UK Independent Albums Chart and was released to critical praise from the UK music press, garnering it comparisons to the work of disparate artists such as Miles Davis, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Arthur Russell, and Cocteau Twins. Writing for Melody Maker, critic Simon Reynolds described it as "the outstanding record of '88."[4] Music historian Martin C. Strong described the album's sound as "hard to pigeonhole yet seminal nevertheless."[3]

The album has been recognized as an influential precursor to genres such as shoegaze, post-rock and trip hop. In a retrospective review, Ned Raggett called it "an unfairly long-lost classic."[5] In 2007, The Guardian included it in their list of "1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die."[6]

Background and recording edit

In 1987, Ivo Watts-Russell, head of A.R. Kane's then-label 4AD, suggested the duo collaborate with their then-labelmates Colourbox to create a house single. Under the name M/A/R/R/S, they released the single "Pump Up the Volume". Though the song was a huge success, reaching number 1 in the UK Singles Chart and becoming a significant milestone in the development of British acid house music,[7] A.R. Kane did not get on well with Colourbox and ultimately left 4AD in search for a new label and to return to the dream pop musical style of their own music. Before releasing 69, their debut album, the band moved to Rough Trade Records and released the Up Home! EP in 1988, denoting a change in sound.[8] When asked by The Quietus "what happened to the A. R. Kane sound from [1987 to 1988]" and if the band were recording 69 simultaneously with the EP, Rudy Tambala of the duo only replied: "Up Home! was special. Something happened. I can't explain."[8] He later elaborated:

"We were very lucky, we used to sit in bars, and stare wide-eyed at each other and laugh like spliff-heads, just cry with laughter for ages, saying, 'What the fuck is happening', and we knew it was not our doing, it was just that, it was happening, and we enjoyed the trip, with no sense it had ever started or would ever end. We were in an altered state for a few years. Drug-free, I hasten to add. Well, mostly."[8]

69 was recorded at the band's personal studio H.ark Studios,[9] and was their first release recorded there. For the most part, A.R. Kane wrote, performed, arranged, engineered and produced the entire record alone.[9] Nonetheless, there are instances of other collaborators; Ray Shulman provides co-production on "Crazy Blue", "Suicide Kiss" and "Baby Milk Snatcher" and bass guitar on "Crazy Blue" and "Spermwhale Trip Over",[9] Billy McGee plays double bass on one song, whilst Russell Smith plays bass on another.[9] The clarinet is also played by Stephen Benjamin on "The Sun Falls Into the Sea".[9] Tambala's sister Maggie Tambala sings backing vocals on "Crazy Blue."[9]

Music edit

Style edit

"This is no muso affair; all the songs bar "Sulliday" work as exquisite pop. Instead of hooks, though, there are "slides and slips," swooning cadences signifying pangs or shifts between altered states. I would say that the record is deeply moving−certainly it provokes severe internal bleeding in this boy–except that what AR Kane are about is the immobility of rapture. For them, each spasm of the gaze is a step out of time. They are petrified by beauty."

 —Simon Reynolds writing for Melody Maker, 1988.[10]

An experimental dream pop album, 69 was eclectically influenced by several artists, including mid-1980s Cocteau Twins,[11] Miles Davis,[12] Can,[12] and the "disregard for sonic structure" of dub music, whereby 69 "disappears into distant echoes that strikingly predict the succulent Seefeel." Music journalist Simon Reynolds described 69 as finding "unprecedented connections" between jazz, dub, acid rock, Sonic Youth-style "reinvention of the guitar" and Cocteau Twins circa Head Over Heels.[10] Ned Raggett of AllMusic said 69 shows the band felling "playful, mysterious, and inventive all at once, impossible to truly pin down."[5] He said the album was "never simply poppy nor completely arty, and definitely not just the Jesus and Mary Chain/Cocteau Twins fusion most claimed they were."[5] The record is characterized by its usage of feedback,[11] murmured, dizzy voices,[11][13] "vapor-trail guitars,"[13] "echo-laden rhythms,"[13] submerged grooves,[13] and its possession of "a very stripped down sound" with "tracks that at times straddle the line of music and noise."[14]

Although the band coined the term "dream pop" to describe their music, Matteo Losi of Ondarock noted that the British music press had difficulties describing A.R. Kane and 69 in genres, terming 69 as "proto-shoegaze / late wave", and the group's description in the press as the "black Jesus and Mary Chain" became reinforced.[11][15] One reviewer also created his own genres to describe the album: "dream-dub," "narc-psych" and "trip-wave."[15] Martin C. Strong, writing in The Great Rock Bible, said 69 was "avant-rock-styled" and "hard to pigeonhole yet seminal nevertheless."[3] Besides the Cocteau Twins and the Jesus and Mary Chain, critics drew comparisons between parts of the album and Lee Perry,[16] Gong,[16] early Pink Floyd,[16] the "experimental end" of Jimi Hendrix,[16] John Martyn,[10] Arthur Russell,[10] Public Image Ltd,[3] The Durutti Column,[3] Van Morrison's Astral Weeks,[10] and Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom.[13] Reynolds would later describe the album as "an idyll midway" between Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and Cocteau Twins' aforementioned Head Over Heels.[10]

Music Arcades, calling the album "pretty elliptical," noted that some of the tracks on 69 are not songs, but "doodles in sound — but they also showed they could be very commercial when they wanted to be."[16] According to Simon Reynolds, there are two "obsessions" that musically and lyrically govern 69; the ocean–"where normal laws of gravity, acoustics and breathing are eluded", and sleep–"the sleep of beauty, certainty, but above all, the waking sleep of innocence, where every moment is liberated from the grid of adult forward planning, experienced full because free of past and future anxiety. Where these obsessions converge is in the womb."[10] In their 2011 book Beyond and Before: Progressive Rock Since the 1960s, music journalists Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell refer to the band being at the centre of Reynolds' idea of "oceanic music" and that the band reached new heights of rock experimentation on 69.[17] Geiger said that "sea water is in many ways also the element that binds the whole plate together. The water is as a symbol of beauty, liberation and innocence. The concept is regressive in the sense that it seeks towards the pre-language, the pre-born - in the end fetal huddled perfection."[18] Trouser Press said that the album is "mostly concerned with sensuality, but an enervated sensuality."[13]

Composition edit

The album contains ten songs. According to Ned Raggett of AllMusic, opening song "Crazy Blue" resembles "little else recorded that year or any other one", and contains a few plucked guitar notes, a sudden "jazzy scat-vamp" by singer Rudi "with his unique voice", followed by "a more direct poppish strum, the woozy line, "Ooooh...everything's gone crazy now," followed by a series of intense reverbed chime sounds and bongo-like percussion."[5] According to Raggett, "from there on in, things take a turn for the strangely captivating in song after song."[5] Both "Crazy Blue" and second song "Suicide Kiss" feature "lost and lonely listlessness" and languid jazz inflections.[10]

"Baby Milk Snatcher" appears to reference both the then-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who had become known as the "milk snatcher", and to oral sex, containing lyrics such as "baby suck my seed."[16] "Sulliday" features buried, measured percussion and evocative drones [5] Raggett described "Dizzy" as featuring a "mesmerizing call-and-response by Rudi with himself, veering between more gentle, direct vocals and echoed shouts, eerily foretelling much of what Tricky would similarly do years later."[5] The song features a sway of cello and vocals, counterpointed by a "catacomb of screams" described by Reynolds as combining John Lydon with Tim Buckley.[10]

"Spermwhale Trip Over" was described by Ott as an "oddly title masterpiece" and "the album's hallmark", saying "the track's present-tense update of the Cocteau Twins' ethereal elegies is perhaps the group's defining moment."[11] According to MusicArcades, the song "witters on about LSDreams."[16] The song was a singular influence on Bark Psychosis and the aforementioned Seefeel.[11] "The Sun Falls into the Sea" was described by Reynolds as "just incomparable: a mermaid lullaby not so much "accompanied" as almost drowned out by a sound like an immense quartz harp the size of a whale's exoskeleton, from which harmonics disperse and scatter as haywire as sunlight refracting beneath the ocean surface. It's not the notes played, but the untranscribeable opalescence of the stuff of this sound that's so unbearably lovely."[10]

Release edit

69 was released on 1 July 1988[19] by Rough Trade Records on CD, LP and cassette in the United Kingdom, Europe, Australasia and the United States.[20] The 1989 LP released in Australia and New Zealand also credits Festival Records as a record label.[21] Commercially successful for an independent album, 69 peaked at number 1 on the UK Independent Albums Chart.[22] Geoff Halpin is credited with packaging "design", with John Geary drawing the "69" illustration on the album cover and Paul Khera for the "sleeve."[9] The alternative title Sixty Nine is also used in the packaging.[9] In the UK, 69 was reissued on CD in 1999 by Rough Trade Records and in 2000 by One Little Indian,[23] who also remastered and re-released the album in the US in 2004 alongside i (1989) as part of their "Crossing the Pond" series of remastered editions of British albums that were never released domestically in the United States.[24] Pitchfork considered the remasters of the two albums to be "the jewels in the crown of One Little Indian's Crossing the Pond reissue campaign" alongside Disco Inferno's D. I. Go Pop (1994) and Technicolour (1996).[25]

Simon Reynolds presumed the perceived references to oral sex in some of the band's lyrics continued to the album title, 69 (as in the sex position) and the "weird sea creatures in suggestive positions" on the album cover. Tambala denied any intention, saying the album cover shows "crustacean people from the planet Zarg... But they weren't having sex... They didn't have sex organs, for a start."[12] Ayuli said "it's an angle. To be honest, most of the song titles we don't think about. The title seems to connect at the time, and it's not until later that we think: 'oh dear, we mentioned sperm again'. And then it's too late, it's printed on the record.... But I like the idea of people inputting stuff into the music. I mean, there's only so many things that can happen, right, and if you leave enough room, then they all happen."[12] Geiger said that "the title's reference to the sexual position is obvious, but the figure symbolizes also opposed the connectedness, the circle organic ran from one to the other. The plate cover is emerging as also on white background a dark circle in the middle of which we can faintly make out the number 69, which is shaped like two dark, undulating spirals. Inner-case's intricate shading shows the blue background and more clearly six-figure as a pregnant woman and nine-figure as a man, both swimming, in harmonious movements."[18]

Critical reception edit

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [5]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music     [26]
The Great Rock Bible8/10[3]
Pitchfork9.1/10 [27]
Spin Alternative Record Guide9/10[28]

69 was released to unanimously positive reviews, and led to the band becoming cited by many critics and fans as one of the most important and innovative bands of the era. Fact stated that the band became "considered every inch the equals of My Bloody Valentine and the Pixies."[22] In his review for Melody Maker, Simon Reynolds was hugely favourable, saying "I'd like to think that it's a blueprint for the next decade of rock. Whatever, the album of this year is upon us, already."[10] He said that numerous different aspects of the album reminded him of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (1968)–"the child-woman fixations, the tongue-tied murmur, the scat-nonsense whose alliteration assonance skirt the edges of the "more can be said," the sense of the halcyon recovered of sky-gardens all wet with angel tears. Maybe, like Van Morrison's record, 69 is a maverick, singular, unrepeatable document." He later called it "the outstanding record of '88."[10]

Later reviews were also highly positive. In the 1995 Spin Alternative Record Guide, Simon Reynolds said that 69 "was a druggy drift of swoony sensuality, narcotic reverie and polymorphous desire, Alex's frail vocal wandering through labyrinthine sound-grottoes."[12] In his 2004 book The A to X of Alternative Music, Steve Taylor names 69 as "what to buy first"–recommending the album as what listeners new to the band should listen to first.[29] Music Arcades was favourable in its review, with the reviewer saying "I don't like describing band just by comparing them to others — it feels lazy — but in this album you can hear clear echoes of Cocteau Twins, Lee Perry, Gong and early Pink Floyd as well as the experimental end of Hendrix."[16] Rob Fitzpatrick of The Guardian commented that 69 was, "creatively, AR Kane's high-water mark," describing it as "a brilliantly sprawling and ambitious collection that was immersive and playful – and completely off the wall."[30]

Upon its 2004 reissue, Chris Ott of Pitchfork wrote that the album revealed that "the unreal boom-box beat" of "Anitina" [the B-side to "Pump Up the Volume" that was billed as an A.R. Kane track] was "a red herring, aimed at selling the uninitiated on feedback and dizzy vocals."[11] Although he considered the first two songs to sound like "awkward anachronisms" in 2004, he also said they were "the record's catchiest tracks" and considered "Spermwhale Trip Over" to be "perhaps the group's defining moment."[11] In The Great Rock Bible, Martin C. Strong called the album "seminal," saying, "closer in many respects to PiL in bed with The Durutti Column", the duo's fantasy-league trips to the moon and back resulted in excellent ethereal pieces," namely "Crazy Blue", "Baby Milk Catcher", "Suicide Kiss" and "Sperm Whale Trip Over".[3] The website of Primavera Sound said that A.R. Kane "were pioneers before their time but 69, their 1988 debut, is still seen today as splendid avant garde black pop with flashes of white, whichever way you look at it."[31]

Legacy edit

Influence edit

"Arguably the most criminally under-recognized band of their era, the British duo A.R. Kane anticipated virtually all of the key musical breakthroughs of the 1990s a decade before the fact, with the roots of everything from shoegazing to trip-hop to ambient dub -- even those of post-rock -- lying in their dreamy, oceanic sound."

 —Jason Ankeny of AllMusic.[32]

69, alongside the band's other albums for Rough Trade, made a deep impression on emerging shoegaze, psychedelic and post-rock bands such as Flying Saucer Attack, Slowdive, Bark Psychosis and Disco Inferno.[22] According to Geiger, 69 is "both an important rock-historical document and a key liaison to the hybrid-like solutions of rock stereotypes that happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s. AR Kane's mixing of different musical genres show as a whole to these differing waves as shoegazer, ambient, trip hop and post-rock."[18] The album has been said to "strikingly predict" the sound of 1990s band Seefeel,[11] whilst "Spermwhale Trip Over" was a direct influence on Seefeel and Bark Psychosis.[11] "Suicide Kiss" has been said to predict "heavier" shoegaze bands such as the God Machine.[11] Tambala stated that highly regarded shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine's song "Slow", which he described as the birth of their signature "giddy, slip-sliding sound," was directly influenced by "Baby Milk Snatcher."[33] He recalled My Bloody Valentine "were a jangly indie band until we put out 'Baby Milk Snatcher'. Suddenly they slowed it all down and layered it with feedback. And they did it better than us, which was interesting."[30] "Dizzy" was observed by Allmusic for largely predicting the music of Tricky.[5]

Tambala recalled reading that in 1988, David Bowie was spotted in Virgin Megastore buying 69 and noted that later that year Bowie recorded the raw Tin Machine,[33] posing 69 as a possible influence on Tin Machine and quipping "Coincidence? I like to think not. Make of that little apocrypha what you will."[33] In 2012, Rob Fitzpatrick of The Guardian remarked that A.R. Kane's blending of "dub, feedback, psychedelic dream-pop, house and free jazz" can still be heard in modern artists such as Radiohead, Four Tet, Animal Collective and Burial.[30] As Ondarock described the scenario, "69 has been very influential, and like few other artifacts of its time. That said, it seems only right to reassess, under the purely aesthetic point of view, the fragrance bouquet: that unique mix where dub, pop, electronic, minimalism and rock instrumentation serene drown, eyeing the ascetic limbo of Talk Talk of Spirit of Eden and foreshadowing a thousand other things (not least 90% of the entire Too Pure catalog.)"[15]

Aftermath and accolades edit

Due to the success of 69, the band had "more money to buy music" and were "exposed to a lot more through recommendation and just through hanging out in different scenes."[8] This resulted in the band following 69 with the EP Love-Sick (1988) and the double album, i (1989), which was also met with critical acclaim. Ned Raggett of The Quietus said that "compared to the filigrees and fillips that began [on 69], i almost bursts out of the gate."[34] The band recalled "we kinda broke into the candy store and went mental with Love Sick and i – somebody should have stopped us! The indie scene was new to us; I thought indie meant from Indianapolis. Our first bass player Russell introduced us to a lot of 'dark' music (Swans, Buttholes, Nick Cave) and our second bassist Colin introduced us to certain classical ideas and progressive, intellectual stuff."[8] In 2012, Tambala "smilingly" recalled that "69 is a gem. We wanted to go as far out as we could, and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music."[30]

At the end of 1988, numerous critics ranked the album on their lists of "Albums of the Year"; Melody Maker ranked it 5th,[35] Spex ranked it 28th,[citation needed] Rockdelux ranked it 36th,[citation needed] whilst Q included it in their unordered list of the top 50 "Recordings of the Year."[36] In 1999, The Guardian ranked the album at number 78 in its list of "Top 100 Albums that Don't Appear in All the Other Top 100 Albums of All Time Lists"–a list which featuring the greatest albums that do not appear in other lists of the greatest albums of all time,[37] and in 2007, they included it in their list of "1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die."[6] Ondarock included the album in its ongoing list of "Rock Milestones."[citation needed] In The Rough Guide to Rock, Ben Smith named it one of the best albums of the decade.[38] Jim DeRogatis included the album in his 1996 list book Kaleidoscope Eyes: Psychedelic Rock from the '60s to the '90s.[39]

Track listing edit

All tracks are written by A.R. Kane

No.TitleLength
1."Crazy Blue"3:26
2."Suicide Kiss"3:36
3."Baby Milk Snatcher"3:16
4."Scab"3:25
5."Sulliday"6:33
6."Dizzy"3:47
7."Spermwhale Trip Over"4:40
8."The Sun Falls into the Sea"5:45
9."The Madonna Is with Child"3:49
10."Spanish Quay (3)"2:06

Personnel edit

  • A.R. Kane – writers, arrangers, engineers, producers
  • Maggie Tambala – backing vocals (track 1)
  • Russell Smith – bass (track 3)
  • Billy McGee – double bass (track 6)
  • Stephen Benjamin – clarinet (track 8)
  • Ray Shulman – additional producer (tracks 1–3), bass (tracks 1 and 7)
  • Paul Hera – sleeve design
  • John Geary – 69 illustration
  • Geoff Halpin – 69 design

Charts edit

Chart (1988) Peak
position
UK Independent Albums Chart 1

References edit

  1. ^ https://www.discogs.com/fr/release/58749-AR-Kane-69
  2. ^ "A.R. Kane: 69 Album Review | Pitchfork Media". pitchfork.com. Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Strong, Martin C. "A. R. Kane". The Great Rock Bible. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  4. ^ Reynolds, Simon (1988). "AR Kane: 'Supercolourfragilelipsticksexyallahdosehush'". Melody Maker. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Raggett, Ned. "69 – A.R. Kane". AllMusic. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  6. ^ a b "1000 albums to hear before you die: Artists beginning with A". the Guardian. 17 November 2007. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
  7. ^ Bainbridge, Luke (2014). The True Story of Acid House: Britain's Last Youth Culture Revolution. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1780387345.
  8. ^ a b c d e Kulkarni, Neil (11 October 2012). "The Future Came And Went: A. R. Kane Interviewed". The Quietus. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h 69 (liner notes). A.R. Kane. Rough Trade Records. 1988. ROUGH 119.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Reynolds, Simon (18 June 1988). "Beauty Sleeps Deep". Melody Maker. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Ott, Chris (27 April 2004). . Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 29 October 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
  12. ^ a b c d e Reynolds, Simon (7 October 1989). "A.R. Kane, interview". Melody Maker. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  13. ^ a b c d e f Kenny, Glenn; Kot, Greg. "A.R.Kane". Trouser Press. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  14. ^ Eady, Will (14 April 2016). "A Moment In Music History: A.R. Kane And the Birth Of Dream Pop". I Am the Industry. Retrieved 14 July 2016.
  15. ^ a b c Losi, Matteo (6 September 2009). "A. R. Kane – 69 :: Le Pietre Miliari di OndaRock". Ondarock (in Italian). Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h "A.R. Kane: 69". Music Arcades. 29 April 2006. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  17. ^ Hegarty, Paul; Halliwell, Martin (2011). "Post-Progressive". Beyond and Before: Progressive Rock Since the 1960s. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 232. ISBN 978-0826440754. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  18. ^ a b c Falkenstrøm, Claus (1 April 2001). . Geiger (in Danish). Archived from the original on 27 October 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  19. ^ "AR Kane – 69 | Recensione". Sentireascoltare (in Italian). Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  20. ^ "A.R. Kane - 69". Discogs.
  21. ^ "A.R. Kane - 69". Discogs.
  22. ^ a b c Purdom, Tim (13 November 2012). "A love from outer space: dream-pop icons A.R. Kane interviewed". Fact. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  23. ^ "A.R. Kane - 69". Discogs.
  24. ^ Begrand, Adrien (18 May 2004). "Disco Inferno: D.I. Go Pop". PopMatters. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  25. ^ Plagenhoef, Scott (2 June 2004). "Disco Inferno: D.I. Go Pop / Technicolour". Pitchfork. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  26. ^ Larkin, Colin (2009). "AR Kane". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th online ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-199-72636-3. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  27. ^ Moreland, Quinn (14 February 2021). "A.R. Kane: 69". Pitchfork. Retrieved 14 February 2021.
  28. ^ Reynolds, Simon (1995). "A.R. Kane". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. pp. 17–18. ISBN 0-679-75574-8. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  29. ^ Taylor, Steve (2006). "AR Kane". The A to X of Alternative Music. A & C Black. pp. 14–15. ISBN 0826482171. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  30. ^ a b c d Fitzpatrick, Rob (19 September 2012). "AR Kane: how to invent shoegaze without really trying". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  31. ^ . Primavera Sound. Archived from the original on 10 June 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  32. ^ Ankeny, Jason. "A.R. Kane". AllMusic. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  33. ^ a b c Dan, Jen (11 April 2016). "Spill Feature: Rudy Tambala of A.R. Kane". The Spill Magazine. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  34. ^ Raggett, Ned (8 July 2014). "Dream Pop's Year Zero: A.R. Kane's i Revisited". The Quietus. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  35. ^ "Albums of the Year". Melody Maker. 24–31 December 1988. pp. 56–57.
  36. ^ "50 Best Albums of 1988". Q. No. 28. January 1989.
  37. ^ "The alternative top 100 from 41-100 | Special reports | guardian.co.uk". www.theguardian.com. 29 January 1999. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
  38. ^ Smith, Ben (2003). "A.R. Kane". In Buckley, Peter (ed.). The Rough Guide to Rock (3rd ed.). Rough Guides. p. 39. ISBN 1843531054. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
  39. ^ DeRogatis, Jim (1996). Kaleidoscope Eyes: Psychedelic Rock from the '60s to the '90s. Carol Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8065-1788-9.

album, confused, with, 2018, album, emily, blue, debut, album, british, band, kane, released, 1988, rough, trade, records, produced, band, with, additional, production, from, shulman, following, release, their, acclaimed, lollita, home, developed, experimental. Not to be confused with 69 a 2018 album by Emily Blue 69 is the debut album by British band A R Kane released in 1988 on Rough Trade Records and produced by the band with additional co production from Ray Shulman Following the release of their acclaimed Lollita and Up Home EPs 69 developed the experimental dream pop style pioneered by the duo blending elements of dub acid rock jazz noise and pop 69Studio album by A R KaneReleased20 June 1988 1 Recorded1988StudioH ark StudioGenreDream pop 2 avant rock 3 Length40 26LabelRough TradeProducerA R Kane Ray ShulmanA R Kane chronology69 1988 i 1989 69 reached number 1 on the UK Independent Albums Chart and was released to critical praise from the UK music press garnering it comparisons to the work of disparate artists such as Miles Davis Lee Scratch Perry Arthur Russell and Cocteau Twins Writing for Melody Maker critic Simon Reynolds described it as the outstanding record of 88 4 Music historian Martin C Strong described the album s sound as hard to pigeonhole yet seminal nevertheless 3 The album has been recognized as an influential precursor to genres such as shoegaze post rock and trip hop In a retrospective review Ned Raggett called it an unfairly long lost classic 5 In 2007 The Guardian included it in their list of 1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die 6 Contents 1 Background and recording 2 Music 2 1 Style 2 2 Composition 3 Release 4 Critical reception 5 Legacy 5 1 Influence 5 2 Aftermath and accolades 6 Track listing 7 Personnel 8 Charts 9 ReferencesBackground and recording editIn 1987 Ivo Watts Russell head of A R Kane s then label 4AD suggested the duo collaborate with their then labelmates Colourbox to create a house single Under the name M A R R S they released the single Pump Up the Volume Though the song was a huge success reaching number 1 in the UK Singles Chart and becoming a significant milestone in the development of British acid house music 7 A R Kane did not get on well with Colourbox and ultimately left 4AD in search for a new label and to return to the dream pop musical style of their own music Before releasing 69 their debut album the band moved to Rough Trade Records and released the Up Home EP in 1988 denoting a change in sound 8 When asked by The Quietus what happened to the A R Kane sound from 1987 to 1988 and if the band were recording 69 simultaneously with the EP Rudy Tambala of the duo only replied Up Home was special Something happened I can t explain 8 He later elaborated We were very lucky we used to sit in bars and stare wide eyed at each other and laugh like spliff heads just cry with laughter for ages saying What the fuck is happening and we knew it was not our doing it was just that it was happening and we enjoyed the trip with no sense it had ever started or would ever end We were in an altered state for a few years Drug free I hasten to add Well mostly 8 69 was recorded at the band s personal studio H ark Studios 9 and was their first release recorded there For the most part A R Kane wrote performed arranged engineered and produced the entire record alone 9 Nonetheless there are instances of other collaborators Ray Shulman provides co production on Crazy Blue Suicide Kiss and Baby Milk Snatcher and bass guitar on Crazy Blue and Spermwhale Trip Over 9 Billy McGee plays double bass on one song whilst Russell Smith plays bass on another 9 The clarinet is also played by Stephen Benjamin on The Sun Falls Into the Sea 9 Tambala s sister Maggie Tambala sings backing vocals on Crazy Blue 9 Music editStyle edit This is no muso affair all the songs bar Sulliday work as exquisite pop Instead of hooks though there are slides and slips swooning cadences signifying pangs or shifts between altered states I would say that the record is deeply moving certainly it provokes severe internal bleeding in this boy except that what AR Kane are about is the immobility of rapture For them each spasm of the gaze is a step out of time They are petrified by beauty Simon Reynolds writing for Melody Maker 1988 10 An experimental dream pop album 69 was eclectically influenced by several artists including mid 1980s Cocteau Twins 11 Miles Davis 12 Can 12 and the disregard for sonic structure of dub music whereby 69 disappears into distant echoes that strikingly predict the succulent Seefeel Music journalist Simon Reynolds described 69 as finding unprecedented connections between jazz dub acid rock Sonic Youth style reinvention of the guitar and Cocteau Twins circa Head Over Heels 10 Ned Raggett of AllMusic said 69 shows the band felling playful mysterious and inventive all at once impossible to truly pin down 5 He said the album was never simply poppy nor completely arty and definitely not just the Jesus and Mary Chain Cocteau Twins fusion most claimed they were 5 The record is characterized by its usage of feedback 11 murmured dizzy voices 11 13 vapor trail guitars 13 echo laden rhythms 13 submerged grooves 13 and its possession of a very stripped down sound with tracks that at times straddle the line of music and noise 14 Although the band coined the term dream pop to describe their music Matteo Losi of Ondarock noted that the British music press had difficulties describing A R Kane and 69 in genres terming 69 as proto shoegaze late wave and the group s description in the press as the black Jesus and Mary Chain became reinforced 11 15 One reviewer also created his own genres to describe the album dream dub narc psych and trip wave 15 Martin C Strong writing in The Great Rock Bible said 69 was avant rock styled and hard to pigeonhole yet seminal nevertheless 3 Besides the Cocteau Twins and the Jesus and Mary Chain critics drew comparisons between parts of the album and Lee Perry 16 Gong 16 early Pink Floyd 16 the experimental end of Jimi Hendrix 16 John Martyn 10 Arthur Russell 10 Public Image Ltd 3 The Durutti Column 3 Van Morrison s Astral Weeks 10 and Robert Wyatt s Rock Bottom 13 Reynolds would later describe the album as an idyll midway between Miles Davis Bitches Brew and Cocteau Twins aforementioned Head Over Heels 10 Music Arcades calling the album pretty elliptical noted that some of the tracks on 69 are not songs but doodles in sound but they also showed they could be very commercial when they wanted to be 16 According to Simon Reynolds there are two obsessions that musically and lyrically govern 69 the ocean where normal laws of gravity acoustics and breathing are eluded and sleep the sleep of beauty certainty but above all the waking sleep of innocence where every moment is liberated from the grid of adult forward planning experienced full because free of past and future anxiety Where these obsessions converge is in the womb 10 In their 2011 book Beyond and Before Progressive Rock Since the 1960s music journalists Paul Hegarty and Martin Halliwell refer to the band being at the centre of Reynolds idea of oceanic music and that the band reached new heights of rock experimentation on 69 17 Geiger said that sea water is in many ways also the element that binds the whole plate together The water is as a symbol of beauty liberation and innocence The concept is regressive in the sense that it seeks towards the pre language the pre born in the end fetal huddled perfection 18 Trouser Press said that the album is mostly concerned with sensuality but an enervated sensuality 13 Composition edit The album contains ten songs According to Ned Raggett of AllMusic opening song Crazy Blue resembles little else recorded that year or any other one and contains a few plucked guitar notes a sudden jazzy scat vamp by singer Rudi with his unique voice followed by a more direct poppish strum the woozy line Ooooh everything s gone crazy now followed by a series of intense reverbed chime sounds and bongo like percussion 5 According to Raggett from there on in things take a turn for the strangely captivating in song after song 5 Both Crazy Blue and second song Suicide Kiss feature lost and lonely listlessness and languid jazz inflections 10 Baby Milk Snatcher appears to reference both the then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who had become known as the milk snatcher and to oral sex containing lyrics such as baby suck my seed 16 Sulliday features buried measured percussion and evocative drones 5 Raggett described Dizzy as featuring a mesmerizing call and response by Rudi with himself veering between more gentle direct vocals and echoed shouts eerily foretelling much of what Tricky would similarly do years later 5 The song features a sway of cello and vocals counterpointed by a catacomb of screams described by Reynolds as combining John Lydon with Tim Buckley 10 Spermwhale Trip Over was described by Ott as an oddly title masterpiece and the album s hallmark saying the track s present tense update of the Cocteau Twins ethereal elegies is perhaps the group s defining moment 11 According to MusicArcades the song witters on about LSDreams 16 The song was a singular influence on Bark Psychosis and the aforementioned Seefeel 11 The Sun Falls into the Sea was described by Reynolds as just incomparable a mermaid lullaby not so much accompanied as almost drowned out by a sound like an immense quartz harp the size of a whale s exoskeleton from which harmonics disperse and scatter as haywire as sunlight refracting beneath the ocean surface It s not the notes played but the untranscribeable opalescence of the stuff of this sound that s so unbearably lovely 10 Release edit69 was released on 1 July 1988 19 by Rough Trade Records on CD LP and cassette in the United Kingdom Europe Australasia and the United States 20 The 1989 LP released in Australia and New Zealand also credits Festival Records as a record label 21 Commercially successful for an independent album 69 peaked at number 1 on the UK Independent Albums Chart 22 Geoff Halpin is credited with packaging design with John Geary drawing the 69 illustration on the album cover and Paul Khera for the sleeve 9 The alternative title Sixty Nine is also used in the packaging 9 In the UK 69 was reissued on CD in 1999 by Rough Trade Records and in 2000 by One Little Indian 23 who also remastered and re released the album in the US in 2004 alongside i 1989 as part of their Crossing the Pond series of remastered editions of British albums that were never released domestically in the United States 24 Pitchfork considered the remasters of the two albums to be the jewels in the crown of One Little Indian s Crossing the Pond reissue campaign alongside Disco Inferno s D I Go Pop 1994 and Technicolour 1996 25 Simon Reynolds presumed the perceived references to oral sex in some of the band s lyrics continued to the album title 69 as in the sex position and the weird sea creatures in suggestive positions on the album cover Tambala denied any intention saying the album cover shows crustacean people from the planet Zarg But they weren t having sex They didn t have sex organs for a start 12 Ayuli said it s an angle To be honest most of the song titles we don t think about The title seems to connect at the time and it s not until later that we think oh dear we mentioned sperm again And then it s too late it s printed on the record But I like the idea of people inputting stuff into the music I mean there s only so many things that can happen right and if you leave enough room then they all happen 12 Geiger said that the title s reference to the sexual position is obvious but the figure symbolizes also opposed the connectedness the circle organic ran from one to the other The plate cover is emerging as also on white background a dark circle in the middle of which we can faintly make out the number 69 which is shaped like two dark undulating spirals Inner case s intricate shading shows the blue background and more clearly six figure as a pregnant woman and nine figure as a man both swimming in harmonious movements 18 Critical reception editProfessional ratingsReview scoresSourceRatingAllMusic nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp 5 Encyclopedia of Popular Music nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp 26 The Great Rock Bible8 10 3 Pitchfork9 1 10 27 Spin Alternative Record Guide9 10 28 69 was released to unanimously positive reviews and led to the band becoming cited by many critics and fans as one of the most important and innovative bands of the era Fact stated that the band became considered every inch the equals of My Bloody Valentine and the Pixies 22 In his review for Melody Maker Simon Reynolds was hugely favourable saying I d like to think that it s a blueprint for the next decade of rock Whatever the album of this year is upon us already 10 He said that numerous different aspects of the album reminded him of Van Morrison s Astral Weeks 1968 the child woman fixations the tongue tied murmur the scat nonsense whose alliteration assonance skirt the edges of the more can be said the sense of the halcyon recovered of sky gardens all wet with angel tears Maybe like Van Morrison s record 69 is a maverick singular unrepeatable document He later called it the outstanding record of 88 10 Later reviews were also highly positive In the 1995 Spin Alternative Record Guide Simon Reynolds said that 69 was a druggy drift of swoony sensuality narcotic reverie and polymorphous desire Alex s frail vocal wandering through labyrinthine sound grottoes 12 In his 2004 book The A to X of Alternative Music Steve Taylor names 69 as what to buy first recommending the album as what listeners new to the band should listen to first 29 Music Arcades was favourable in its review with the reviewer saying I don t like describing band just by comparing them to others it feels lazy but in this album you can hear clear echoes of Cocteau Twins Lee Perry Gong and early Pink Floyd as well as the experimental end of Hendrix 16 Rob Fitzpatrick of The Guardian commented that 69 was creatively AR Kane s high water mark describing it as a brilliantly sprawling and ambitious collection that was immersive and playful and completely off the wall 30 Upon its 2004 reissue Chris Ott of Pitchfork wrote that the album revealed that the unreal boom box beat of Anitina the B side to Pump Up the Volume that was billed as an A R Kane track was a red herring aimed at selling the uninitiated on feedback and dizzy vocals 11 Although he considered the first two songs to sound like awkward anachronisms in 2004 he also said they were the record s catchiest tracks and considered Spermwhale Trip Over to be perhaps the group s defining moment 11 In The Great Rock Bible Martin C Strong called the album seminal saying closer in many respects to PiL in bed with The Durutti Column the duo s fantasy league trips to the moon and back resulted in excellent ethereal pieces namely Crazy Blue Baby Milk Catcher Suicide Kiss and Sperm Whale Trip Over 3 The website of Primavera Sound said that A R Kane were pioneers before their time but 69 their 1988 debut is still seen today as splendid avant garde black pop with flashes of white whichever way you look at it 31 Legacy editInfluence edit Arguably the most criminally under recognized band of their era the British duo A R Kane anticipated virtually all of the key musical breakthroughs of the 1990s a decade before the fact with the roots of everything from shoegazing to trip hop to ambient dub even those of post rock lying in their dreamy oceanic sound Jason Ankeny of AllMusic 32 69 alongside the band s other albums for Rough Trade made a deep impression on emerging shoegaze psychedelic and post rock bands such as Flying Saucer Attack Slowdive Bark Psychosis and Disco Inferno 22 According to Geiger 69 is both an important rock historical document and a key liaison to the hybrid like solutions of rock stereotypes that happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s AR Kane s mixing of different musical genres show as a whole to these differing waves as shoegazer ambient trip hop and post rock 18 The album has been said to strikingly predict the sound of 1990s band Seefeel 11 whilst Spermwhale Trip Over was a direct influence on Seefeel and Bark Psychosis 11 Suicide Kiss has been said to predict heavier shoegaze bands such as the God Machine 11 Tambala stated that highly regarded shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine s song Slow which he described as the birth of their signature giddy slip sliding sound was directly influenced by Baby Milk Snatcher 33 He recalled My Bloody Valentine were a jangly indie band until we put out Baby Milk Snatcher Suddenly they slowed it all down and layered it with feedback And they did it better than us which was interesting 30 Dizzy was observed by Allmusic for largely predicting the music of Tricky 5 Tambala recalled reading that in 1988 David Bowie was spotted in Virgin Megastore buying 69 and noted that later that year Bowie recorded the raw Tin Machine 33 posing 69 as a possible influence on Tin Machine and quipping Coincidence I like to think not Make of that little apocrypha what you will 33 In 2012 Rob Fitzpatrick of The Guardian remarked that A R Kane s blending of dub feedback psychedelic dream pop house and free jazz can still be heard in modern artists such as Radiohead Four Tet Animal Collective and Burial 30 As Ondarock described the scenario 69 has been very influential and like few other artifacts of its time That said it seems only right to reassess under the purely aesthetic point of view the fragrance bouquet that unique mix where dub pop electronic minimalism and rock instrumentation serene drown eyeing the ascetic limbo of Talk Talk of Spirit of Eden and foreshadowing a thousand other things not least 90 of the entire Too Pure catalog 15 Aftermath and accolades edit Due to the success of 69 the band had more money to buy music and were exposed to a lot more through recommendation and just through hanging out in different scenes 8 This resulted in the band following 69 with the EP Love Sick 1988 and the double album i 1989 which was also met with critical acclaim Ned Raggett of The Quietus said that compared to the filigrees and fillips that began on 69 i almost bursts out of the gate 34 The band recalled we kinda broke into the candy store and went mental with Love Sick and i somebody should have stopped us The indie scene was new to us I thought indie meant from Indianapolis Our first bass player Russell introduced us to a lot of dark music Swans Buttholes Nick Cave and our second bassist Colin introduced us to certain classical ideas and progressive intellectual stuff 8 In 2012 Tambala smilingly recalled that 69 is a gem We wanted to go as far out as we could and in doing so we discovered the point where it stops being music 30 At the end of 1988 numerous critics ranked the album on their lists of Albums of the Year Melody Maker ranked it 5th 35 Spex ranked it 28th citation needed Rockdelux ranked it 36th citation needed whilst Q included it in their unordered list of the top 50 Recordings of the Year 36 In 1999 The Guardian ranked the album at number 78 in its list of Top 100 Albums that Don t Appear in All the Other Top 100 Albums of All Time Lists a list which featuring the greatest albums that do not appear in other lists of the greatest albums of all time 37 and in 2007 they included it in their list of 1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die 6 Ondarock included the album in its ongoing list of Rock Milestones citation needed In The Rough Guide to Rock Ben Smith named it one of the best albums of the decade 38 Jim DeRogatis included the album in his 1996 list book Kaleidoscope Eyes Psychedelic Rock from the 60s to the 90s 39 Track listing editAll tracks are written by A R KaneNo TitleLength1 Crazy Blue 3 262 Suicide Kiss 3 363 Baby Milk Snatcher 3 164 Scab 3 255 Sulliday 6 336 Dizzy 3 477 Spermwhale Trip Over 4 408 The Sun Falls into the Sea 5 459 The Madonna Is with Child 3 4910 Spanish Quay 3 2 06Personnel editA R Kane writers arrangers engineers producers Maggie Tambala backing vocals track 1 Russell Smith bass track 3 Billy McGee double bass track 6 Stephen Benjamin clarinet track 8 Ray Shulman additional producer tracks 1 3 bass tracks 1 and 7 Paul Hera sleeve design John Geary 69 illustration Geoff Halpin 69 designCharts editChart 1988 PeakpositionUK Independent Albums Chart 1References edit https www discogs com fr release 58749 AR Kane 69 A R Kane 69 Album Review Pitchfork Media pitchfork com Retrieved 14 February 2021 a b c d e f g Strong Martin C A R Kane The Great Rock Bible Retrieved 27 October 2016 Reynolds Simon 1988 AR Kane Supercolourfragilelipsticksexyallahdosehush Melody Maker Retrieved 14 July 2016 a b c d e f g h i Raggett Ned 69 A R Kane AllMusic Retrieved 14 July 2016 a b 1000 albums to hear before you die Artists beginning with A the Guardian 17 November 2007 Retrieved 10 December 2023 Bainbridge Luke 2014 The True Story of Acid House Britain s Last Youth Culture Revolution Omnibus Press ISBN 978 1780387345 a b c d e Kulkarni Neil 11 October 2012 The Future Came And Went A R Kane Interviewed The Quietus Retrieved 14 July 2016 a b c d e f g h 69 liner notes A R Kane Rough Trade Records 1988 ROUGH 119 a href Template Cite AV media notes html title Template Cite AV media notes cite AV media notes a CS1 maint others in cite AV media notes link a b c d e f g h i j k l Reynolds Simon 18 June 1988 Beauty Sleeps Deep Melody Maker Retrieved 10 November 2016 a b c d e f g h i j k Ott Chris 27 April 2004 A R Kane 69 i Pitchfork Archived from the original on 29 October 2010 Retrieved 23 October 2012 a b c d e Reynolds Simon 7 October 1989 A R Kane interview Melody Maker Retrieved 10 November 2016 a b c d e f Kenny Glenn Kot Greg A R Kane Trouser Press Retrieved 10 November 2016 Eady Will 14 April 2016 A Moment In Music History A R Kane And the Birth Of Dream Pop I Am the Industry Retrieved 14 July 2016 a b c Losi Matteo 6 September 2009 A R Kane 69 Le Pietre Miliari di OndaRock Ondarock in Italian Retrieved 27 October 2016 a b c d e f g h A R Kane 69 Music Arcades 29 April 2006 Retrieved 27 October 2016 Hegarty Paul Halliwell Martin 2011 Post Progressive Beyond and Before Progressive Rock Since the 1960s Bloomsbury Publishing USA p 232 ISBN 978 0826440754 Retrieved 27 October 2016 a b c Falkenstrom Claus 1 April 2001 AR Kane 69 Geiger in Danish Archived from the original on 27 October 2016 Retrieved 27 October 2016 AR Kane 69 Recensione Sentireascoltare in Italian Retrieved 27 October 2016 A R Kane 69 Discogs A R Kane 69 Discogs a b c Purdom Tim 13 November 2012 A love from outer space dream pop icons A R Kane interviewed Fact Retrieved 27 October 2016 A R Kane 69 Discogs Begrand Adrien 18 May 2004 Disco Inferno D I Go Pop PopMatters Retrieved 27 October 2016 Plagenhoef Scott 2 June 2004 Disco Inferno D I Go Pop Technicolour Pitchfork Retrieved 27 October 2016 Larkin Colin 2009 AR Kane The Encyclopedia of Popular Music 4th online ed Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 199 72636 3 Retrieved 28 January 2018 Moreland Quinn 14 February 2021 A R Kane 69 Pitchfork Retrieved 14 February 2021 Reynolds Simon 1995 A R Kane In Weisbard Eric Marks Craig eds Spin Alternative Record Guide Vintage Books pp 17 18 ISBN 0 679 75574 8 Retrieved 29 October 2016 Taylor Steve 2006 AR Kane The A to X of Alternative Music A amp C Black pp 14 15 ISBN 0826482171 Retrieved 27 October 2016 a b c d Fitzpatrick Rob 19 September 2012 AR Kane how to invent shoegaze without really trying The Guardian Retrieved 27 October 2016 A R Kane Primavera Sound Archived from the original on 10 June 2016 Retrieved 27 October 2016 Ankeny Jason A R Kane AllMusic Retrieved 27 October 2016 a b c Dan Jen 11 April 2016 Spill Feature Rudy Tambala of A R Kane The Spill Magazine Retrieved 27 October 2016 Raggett Ned 8 July 2014 Dream Pop s Year Zero A R Kane s i Revisited The Quietus Retrieved 27 October 2016 Albums of the Year Melody Maker 24 31 December 1988 pp 56 57 50 Best Albums of 1988 Q No 28 January 1989 The alternative top 100 from 41 100 Special reports guardian co uk www theguardian com 29 January 1999 Retrieved 10 December 2023 Smith Ben 2003 A R Kane In Buckley Peter ed The Rough Guide to Rock 3rd ed Rough Guides p 39 ISBN 1843531054 Retrieved 31 October 2016 DeRogatis Jim 1996 Kaleidoscope Eyes Psychedelic Rock from the 60s to the 90s Carol Publishing Group ISBN 978 0 8065 1788 9 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title 69 album amp oldid 1196810422, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.