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Laurie Spiegel: The Expanding Universe

2013-02-09 20:31:00 (читать в оригинале)

In 1977, American astronomer Carl Sagan selected the composer Laurie Spiegel's computerized realization of Johannes Kepler's 1619 treatise "e;Harmony of the Worlds"e; for inclusion aboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft's "e;Golden Record"e;. Kepler's "e;Harmony of the Worlds"e; was the lead cut on a collection that held recordings of natural sounds, greetings in 55 languages, selections from Beethoven, Mozart, Blind Willie Johnson, and Chuck Berry, for the sake of demonstrating to other life forms in the galaxy that there is intelligent life on our planet. And now, Laurie Spiegel's music has traveled to the edge of our solar system.

Back on Earth, the New York label Unseen Worlds has obliged us with more Laurie Spiegel, reissuing her 1980 album, The Expanding Universe, and adding over 100 minutes of additional music. At a time when crucial female electronic composers like Pauline Oliveros and Suzanne Ciani are receiving new recognition for their work, Spiegel's music continues to resonate and often sounds strangely contemporary. That her work can be simultaneously dystopian and luminous speaks to Spiegel's talents. She can evoke the chilling cosmos while also crafting something small-scale and warm. When Voyager launched, President Jimmy Carter said: "e;This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings."e; His statement applies just as readily to The Expanding Universe.

Spiegel attended Julliard before researching at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, and at Connecticut's Electronic Music Laboratories on the nascent music systems being developed there. (Ultimately, she chose to pursue programming, forgoing musical composition altogether.) The notes within this reissue show the room-sized computers with which Spiegel concocted her music, and her anecdotes recall disk drives the size of washing machines preserving mere seconds of code. She offers details like: "e;This 32k DDP understood FORTRAN IV and DAP II 24-bit assembly language. It could do an integer add in as little as 3.8 milliseconds but a floating point multiply could take up to 115.9 microseconds. You can bet we all wrote the tightest, smallest, fastest code we could."e;

Whatever its heady origins, Spiegel's music is inviting, playful, and visceral. As she explained to The Wall Street Journal recently: "e;There were all of these negative images of computers as giant machines that would take over the world and had no sense of anything warm and fuzzy or affectionate."e; Yet "e;Patchwork"e; has the buoyancy of the ARP figure from the Who's "e;Baba O'Riley"e;, "e;Old Wave"e; is woozy and syrup-slow, and a number of melodies anticipate the analog splendors of Jürgen Müller or Boards of Canada. Her intellectual curiosity led her to investigate African and Indian polyrhythms-- which inform the throbbing and lively "e;Drums"e;-- as well as the modal Celtic tunes she heard while studying American folk music in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which permeate three iterations of "e;Appalachian Grove"e;.

Thrilling as these shorter studies might be, it's in her longer, more contemplative works that Spiegel's sensibilities become clearest. "e;The Expanding Universe"e; is nearly a half-hour of swelling, evolving tones, and she stresses that the composition is neither "e;minimalist"e; nor "e;ambient,"e; and that it exists wholly in its own space. Even if Spiegel's music weren't already launched into the firmament, it would finds its natural home there; it's when she contemplates orbits, heavenly bodies, and the cosmos through sound that her imagination is unparalleled. While Kepler mused that the "e;Harmony of the Worlds"e; would be audible only to the ear of God, what reaches human ears via Spiegel's realization is bracing, menacing, and disorienting, the piercing tones not unlike a choir of air raid sirens. An alien life form encountering it on Voyager's "e;Golden Record"e; would conclude that our world was a maddening, maniacal place.

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Royal Trux: Accelerator

2013-02-09 20:31:00 (читать в оригинале)

In the early 90s, indie rock was essentially synonymous with lo-fi, as upstart artists embraced four-track recording for its cost-effectiveness, DIY egalitarianism, and aesthetic remove from the increasingly commercialized nature of alternative rock. But by decade's end, many of the movement's most visible proponents-- Guided by Voices, Pavement, Sebadoh-- had traded up to bigger labels, bigger recording budgets, and proper producers, effectively defining the idea of lo-fi as a formative phase that bands inevitably outgrow.

Royal Trux seemed destined to follow the same trajectory. While the duo of Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema first earned underground renown with 1990's still-inscrutable sci-fi skronk masterwork Twin Infinitives, by 1995, the band was signing a three-album deal with Virgin Records and hiring Neil Young's long-time right-hand man, David Briggs, to oversee their southern-rockin' major-label debut, Thank You. And despite its infamously retch-worthy cover art, the 1997 follow-up, Sweet Sixteen, was even more sophisticated in execution, swaddling the band's grimy boogie in layers of cinematic strings and gleaming guitar solos. But Royal Trux's increasingly high-concept take on dirtbag-rock didn't exactly light up SoundScan registers: Rather than release the band's third Virgin submission, Accelerator, the label opted to pay Royal Trux to just go away. (Hagerty all but anticipates Royal Trux's exile from Virgin when, on the Dylan-esque "e;Yellow Kid"e;, he moans, "e;I don't like this arrangement/ Wild schemes and nothing but bad dreams."e;)

You can't blame the Virgin execs for running scared-- in sharp contrast to its two refined predecessors, Accelerator pulls an abrupt 180 back to the lo-fi obfuscation of Royal Trux's earliest releases. Accelerator found more sympathetic benefactors at the band's original homebase of Drag City Records, but while sonically of a piece with the hazy, strung-out blooze of 1992's untitled release and 1993's Cats and Dogs, the album continues with the more accessible songcraft the band introduced on the two Virgin releases, making this both the most openly celebratory yet eternally warped entry in the Royal Trux canon. In the hands of, say, Guided by Voices, lo-fi recording could approximate the tinny din of the golden oldies broadcast on your local AM station; Accelerator, however, doesn't so much evoke the sound of a classic-rock band blaring out of a cheap transistor radio as one trapped inside of it, strangled by circuitry and choking on static.

Royal Trux had conceived their three-album Virgin run as a triptych exploring a different decade in recent American pop-cultural history: Thank You was their comment on the 1960s, Sweet Sixteen their take on the 1970s, and Accelerator their interpretation of the 1980s. Not that you could necessarily tell without the advance notice: Accelerator bears none of the MTV-ready sleekness we tend to associate with popular music from the era and, if anything, its acid-damaged riffage, wiggy Wurlitzer vamps, and copious cowbell more closely relate to turn-of-the-70s post-hippie jam-rock. (The latest release from Herrema's post-Trux outfit, Black Bananas, Rad Times Express IV, actually boasts a more explicitly 80s ethos.) But then, for all of the glamor and futurism attached to the 80s, the decade was equally defined by its retro-gazing-- the first wave of aging-rocker reunion tours, "e;The Wonder Years"e;, and every second film at your local cinema being about the Vietnam War. Accelerator thus captures the experience of 80s kids who grew up thinking the most transformative moments in history had already passed them by, its distorted, disorienting production underscoring the impossibility of recapturing something that's long gone. Closer in spirit to Ariel Pink's phantasmagoric pop than its 90s lo-fi contemporaries, Accelerator is like an Instagram-filtered take on rock's golden age-- an attempt to recapture something authentic through knowingly artificial, premeditated means.

Like the previous entries in Drag City's Royal Trux reissue campaign, this no-frills re-release of Accelerator exists simply to put this essential album back into print rather than try to deconstruct its mystique through outtakes and demos. And besides, bonus materials are ultimately unnecessary, because this album sounds every bit as absurd, chaotic, and exhilarating as it did 14 years ago. The passage of time has brought us no more closer to figuring out the logic of the uproarious roadhouse riot "e;The Banana Question"e; or the absolutely demented, street-jive nursery rhyme "e;Juicy, Juicy, Juice"e;, but their insidious earworm hooks perpetually lure you back into the clamor for further investigation.

Most of these tracks are simply structured, and even repeat the same lyrics throughout, but Royal Trux deviously tweak the sonics so that you barely recognize your surroundings by song's end-- over the course of five identical verse/chorus cycles, "e;New Bones"e; approximates the sound of walking through the eye of a hurricane, with Herrema's dead-cool drawl and the song's steady strut perilously on the brink of being washed out Hagerty's alien guitar frequencies and shortwave vocals. But Accelerator's bizarro sound-world is not so overwhelming as to completely obscure Royal Trux's bad-ass essence (see the wah-wah-drenched knockout "e;Follow the Winner"e;), nor their penchant for surprisingly lucid, affecting lyricism: in the chorus of "e;Liar"e;-- "e;I've got a taste in my mouth/ just like a burning tire"e;-- you've got a slogan for your worst Sunday-morning hangover. And in a late-game surprise, Accelerator drops its fuzz-covered facade to deliver Royal Trux's most unabashedly tender moment ever in "e;Stevie"e;, a suave, string-swept soul ballad that could practically pass for early Steely Dan. Where the song's poignancy was once undermined somewhat by the fact that it was reputedly written in honour of Steven Seagal, today, the tribute feels that much more appropriate: after all, if a B-level 80s action star can go on to play a real cop on TV, then surely Accelerator can now stand alongside the hallowed classic rock it so brilliantly subverts.

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Andrew W.K.: I Get Wet

2013-02-09 20:31:00 (читать в оригинале)

Let me get it out of the way and welcome everyone who clicked here with the sole hope of witnessing Pitchfork's biggest statistical mea culpa ever. Ten years is a long time for sour grapes to ferment, and I hope they're delicious. Perhaps you've heard that we were not particularly kind to Andrew W.K. the first time around. I obviously disagree with Ryan Schreiber's initial assessment, but even if it weren't poor form to publicly air out your boss for opinions he held a decade prior, I'm in no position to judge. I, too, am trying to live down an equally regrettable (if far more obscure) review of I Get Wet for a student newspaper that went in the completely opposite direction, praising it not so much for its musical value as its ability to combine with Adderall and Keystone Ice to form an outgoing college senior's Holy Trinity of nihilistic intoxication. It was and is a record that inspires extreme reactions. And a lot of us seemingly did I Get Wet a great disservice trying to intellectualize it from both sides. Now here we are 10 years later and nothing has changed about the record except our relationship to it. Even though critics of Andrew W.K. were often branded as the fun police and his fans considered fools or incurable ironists, I Get Wet is a singular record, and your opinion of it can't possibly make a larger point about anything else. It just is.

It was one of the last great bizarre major label experiments. Coming at a time when the New Rock Revolution was meant to depose nu-metal, it was staunchly anti-intellectual, undeniably a commercial flop, and yet, you've heard it nearly everywhere. A full decade later, Andrew W.K. maintains enough pop culture juice to end up on TV with striking frequency. Musically, I Get Wet started no trends and influenced no one. It's often scoffed at as one of the dumbest records ever made, but I've heard equally compelling and cogent arguments comparing it to Daft Punk's Discovery in how its treats euphoria as an actual musical genre.

It is not a work of fascinating contradictions, deceptive layers, or idiot savant genius. But do you want to turn a record whose first song is called "e;It's Time to Party"e; into an academic work? Many, including Andrew W.K. himself, have tried to frame "e;party"e; as a metaphorical device or a Zen philosophy, but come the fuck on: It does nothing new in any technical sense if you've been in a basketball arena at any point in your life. And still, the only response to hearing the initial detonation of guitars, kick drums, and fake orchestra hits from "e;It's Time to Party"e; is, "e;What the fuck is this?"e; Or to backflip into a kegstand, after which the next 90 seconds should not be spent around any breakable or flammable home furnishings. "e;Party Hard"e; is the next song and upon first exposure, the two may seem like the five greatest minutes of music you've ever heard. 

Whether you consider these songs to be brilliant, brilliantly dumb, or just dumb, I Get Wet is necessarily simple. Though placed in the lineage of hair metal, there's almost no technical flash, no power ballads, not even a single minor chord. The trickiest modulation happens on the chorus to "e;Girls Own Love"e;, which may or not just be a Hysteria deep cut played at twice the speed. The vocal harmonies of "e;Party Hard"e; are stacked so thick that the melody barely moves, making it the easiest and best karaoke song ever. Even if "e;Party Hard"e; had lyrics about anything else, it would still be a keg-rock legend based on its riffs alone-- they're the four best on I Get Wet, which makes them the four best of that year. But unlike those from, say, White Blood Cells, they just sound wrong banged out on one guitar. The impossible number of vocal and guitar overdubs on "e;Take It Off"e; pushes it beyond even shoegaze incomprehensibility. You simply can't divorce the sensational effect of I Get Wet from its emotional one, and the music truly is the message: "e;It's Time to Party"e; immediately triggers I Get Wet's enduring effect, the same pit-in-the-stomach feeling of boarding a roller coaster, asking someone out, or looking at your bank account after a particularly brutal weekend. It's thrilling, it's nauseating, there's no going back.

But while I Get Wet is the perfect Andrew W.K. album, it's in no way a perfect album. For one thing, there are the songs that actually try to make some sort of coherent statement and could potentially take on some sort of post-9/11 relevance ("e;I Love NYC"e;, "e;Ready to Die"e;). But they thrash about as blissfully unaware as "e;Party Hard"e; because they make absolutely no sense. Many hear I Get Wet as a record of unintentional comedy, but "e;I Love NYC"e; falls into the realm of intentional comedy because I don't even think it's about New York City. Or any city. "e;She Is Beautiful"e; and "e;Girls Own Love"e; are both hilariously bereft of any kind of eroticism, women viewed as mere vessels for expressions of male lust and yet beyond all comprehension. They're songs Barbie and Ken might fuck to. Point being that, for an album that supposedly steamrolls any talk of nuance, it has some pretty mundane issues. And the second half is much weaker than the first. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who's shown up to the I Get Wet 10-year anniversary shows 20 minutes late. (Dude loves to party but he's remarkably punctual.)

Part of that is inevitable since any record that starts with "e;It's Time to Party"e; and "e;Party Hard"e; doesn't leave much room to build on an upward trajectory. But while "e;Party Til You Puke"e; is the culmination of I Get Wet's "e;Party"e; trilogy, it's also the tipping point where the thought of past, present, or future partying becomes unbearably oppressive. The sheer velocity of its call and response vocals renders it a monolithic yell of "e;CHUG,"e; and immediately afterwards, "e;Fun Night"e; is that guy handing you a rally beer at the toilet when all you can say is "e;not now, bro."e; "e;Got to Do It"e; is "e;Girls Own Love"e; seen through the eye of a tiger, and though I've owned this record for nearly a decade, to this day I still can't remember what the title track sounds like. To its credit, "e;Don't Stop Livin' in the Red"e; is pretty much the only way this record could end, and it's nice to see it get him some Target ad money even though it's almost impossible to imagine its, um, suggestive cover appearing in the superstore's sales racks. So I suppose there's irony somewhere in all this.

As far as the reissue goes, it's worth exploring whether or not you're amongst Andrew's white-denimed minions. There's a batch of live tracks that are curiously and intentionally recorded in a way that Andrew W.K. once described to me as what he hears when he's on stage. I'd say the demos and alternate takes are far more intriguing since the idea of I Get Wet ever existing as demos is hilarious-- just imagine Andrew W.K. hunched over an acoustic guitar trying to finish "e;We do what we like…"e; with the right lyric. 

If you're 20 years old and haven't heard I Get Wet yet, go ahead and enjoy it while you can. But I won't convince you that it matters in a larger sense even though the ostensible goal of any reissue, particularly in the case where the original isn't out of print, is to edify or reassess. That's unnecessary with I Get Wet. Not much Andrew W.K. did or could do after the record would redeem, justify, or vindicate your original opinion of it. About a year and a half after it failed to set the charts ablaze, The Wolf happened, and while it's a perfectly fine record, its value is entirely manifested in its utility for expert-level trolling; surely on a message board somewhere, someone is taking great satisfaction in his opinion that it's better than I Get Wet.

Andrew W.K. did go on to make other records on a much smaller and cultishly followed scale, which was likely meant to happen from day one. In spite of the utter lack of separation between Andrew Wilkes-Krier and his living, breathing party persona, neither appears to have aged a day in the past decade, which perhaps confirms the record's totemic, unyielding nature. Because really, while my life has changed significantly since my first exposure to I Get Wet and I maybe spin this record once a year, I still don't think there's ever been an album that does a better job, while it's actually playing, of convincing me it's the only music I'll ever need for the rest of my life.

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Ride: Going Blank Again

2013-02-09 20:31:00 (читать в оригинале)

If the intent of reissuing Ride's first two LPs was to change the group's reputation of being the perennial runner-ups of the shoegaze era-- the human foil to the divine My Bloody Valentine, a great band rather than a legendary one-- then this campaign has been a miserable failure. Mostly because the truth wins out: "e;The Story of Going Blank Again"e; contains the following quotes from the members of Ride: "e;It's a steady work process, which is a great way to do an album,"e; "e;It was fun, it was a team effort,"e; "e;I think it was the closest together as a band we ever were. There was no tension, no conflict. Everything just seemed to work."e;

Ride didn't bankrupt Creation Records; in fact, they partied with Alan McGee. They never advanced the image of being hermetic visionaries; they had to force themselves to stop socializing with other bands. They never disappeared for years on end and would later release some universally reviled trad-rock albums that doubled as applications to open for Oasis, or in the case of Andy Bell, to be in Oasis. But on Going Blank Again, Ride managed one thing MBV never accomplished after Loveless and probably never will: facing the crippling expectations and making a tremendous follow-up record.

It might not change the narrative surrounding Ride, but hopefully it does raise the question of why Going Blank Again is assumed to be the contrarian's choice for the band's true masterpiece. Some of it is pretty understandable: Going Blank Again is a noticeably lighter affair and lacks the monolithic heft of its predecessor, which is readily apparent from their respective album art. I mean, compare the two covers, which one looks like the classic to you?  Perhaps more crucially, Going Blank Again was without a movement, the UK looking to move past shoegaze towards something more personality-driven, though it wasn't clear quite what yet.

Strange thing is, Ride could be included in that. Many lesser bands followed in Ride's wake, and "e;Leave Them All Behind"e; is as close as a mission statement that you're gonna get from a band whose lyrics are mostly nonsense. Bell and Mark Gardener's guitars somehow got even louder and it can initially register as Nowhere Plus, but it also sets the tone in how Going Blank Again would distinguish itself. "e;Seagull"e; started Nowhere with a peal of feedback and six minutes of trebly squall that only revealed its layers when played at tinnitus-inducing levels. Blessed with Alan Moulder's crystalline production, the salutation of "e;Leave Them All Behind"e; is a reverberating Hammond organ and an extremely punchy drum break from Loz Colbert, which acknowledge the two encroaching threads of influence of the band: the first of the Who, reflecting Ride's increasing stadium-readiness, the latter acknowledging the influx of hip-hop and funk breakbeats into UK rock.

It might be meant as the valedictory speech of shoegaze, but it isn't actually shoegaze at all, not in the sense where the genre's main goal was to obliterate or obscure. Every single element of "e;Leave Them All Behind"e; is voluminous, but not just in sheer loudness: It's overwhelming, not oppressive, and the sonic expanse is even more mindblowing with this remastering job. Bell and Gardener's barnstorming guitars, Steve Queralt's girder-thick bassline, and Colbert's Moon-sized drum fills all could fill canyons individually, yet never once does it sound like something other than four guys in a room, which explains why Ride was pretty much the only band of their ilk that was as good live as they were on record. That said, the inclusion of the Live at Brixton DVD is mostly notable for its stupendously dated visuals.

The band adamantly demanded "e;Leave It All Behind"e; be the lead single, and it reached No. 9 in Britain, their first Top 10 hit. This would seemingly bode well for Going Blank Again's fortunes considering the next single was the giddy, nonsensical "e;Twisterella"e;. Drawing from the same sugar-spun power-pop of labelmates Teenage Fanclub as well as the cuts from The Stone Roses equally influenced by acid and ecstasy, it was rightfully described by the band as their "e;ace card."e; Yet it was a baffling flop on the charts and Ride released no more singles from there on out. 

Shame, too, as Going Blank Again should have been able to take advantage of its depth and diversity, its main trump over Nowhere. You get Television-styled guitar interplay and Bell and Gardener's most tossed-off lyrics on "e;Not Fazed"e;. "e;Chrome Waves"e; shot for "e;Unfinished Sympathy"e;, but landed somewhere closer to Seal's "e;Crazy"e; and was all the better for it. "e;Leave Them All Behind"e; has an equally colossal bookend in "e;OX4"e;, though the addition of four bonus tracks from the Leave Them All Behind and Twisterella EPs are hardly an unwelcome appendage (particularly "e;Grasshopper"e;). And there are the goofy pop songs like "e;Twisterella"e; which arguably worked against Going Blank Again's legacy, and even the band will admit the flower-child spoof of "e;Making Judy Smile"e; isn't its best work.

Because the typical selling point of shoegaze-- there's classic pop under all that noise!-- doesn't quite explain what Ride excelled at. Speaking on the origin of "e;Mouse Trap"e;, Bell observed, "e;occasionally you discover a chord sequence that you'd be quite happy to play for two hours non-stop."e; There's about eight or so of those on Going Blank Again. Even with Ride's aim to integrate more true pop songwriting, much of Going Blank Again wisely follows the wake of the immortal "e;Vapour Trail"e;, which rode out a single gorgeous progression for nearly its entirety, its only flaw stopping at four minutes instead of eight. More and more, I think the true impact of hip-hop on Ride wasn't evident in Colbert's drum fills so much as their seeing chord progressions as rhythmic beds as much as melodic ones, the way a rapper might treat a breakbeat. As such, Ride proved to be a band that operated in largesse more than finesse: simply building on these perfect chord changes for five minutes at a time with stretched out vocal harmonies, a brief shift of a couple of bars into a minor key, erratic tempo changes toward the thrilling end of "e;Cool Your Boots"e;, bent soloing on "e;Leave Them All Behind"e;, a 12-string riff breaking up the middle of "e;Mouse Trap"e;. The pleasures of Going Blank Again are cumulative, and if you simply love the sound of guitars-- clean ones, distorted ones, overdriven Leslie amps, Les Pauls, Rickenbackers, whatever-- this is about as indulgent as it gets.

Perhaps the timing is just convenient, but Going Blank Again feels more similar to the recently reissued version of Sugar's Copper Blue than anything that's strictly identifiable as shoegaze.  It's certainly reckoning with the aftermath of Loveless and an awareness of Nevermind, if not necessarily its influence. But they're both records that feel welcome 20 years later, because while their more famed peers have influenced hundreds of pale imitators, these more approachable records feel strangely undervalued. Because really, what was the last new band to bear the influence of Sugar or Ride? Not even in strict sonic similarity, since it's hard to imagine the brassy acoustic guitars you hear on "e;Chrome Waves"e; ever coming back into vogue. But more in how there's an unfortunate void of very loud, very catchy, and very polished guitar bands that aren't ashamed of commercial ambitions.  You can learn a lot from Going Blank Again: Come up with four chords worth repeating for four minutes, hum a pretty melody, overdub the guitars, overdub them again, and make the drums even louder. It's not the stuff of legends, but we need great records, too.  

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Roxy Music: Roxy Music: The Complete Studio Recordings 1972-1982

2013-02-09 20:31:00 (читать в оригинале)

In their 1970s heyday, Roxy Music enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success, but even so, they and their art-school rock were admired more than trusted. American critics snipped at leader Bryan Ferry's arch romanticism, while the Brit press considered the models Ferry squired and the suits he doffed and dubbed him "e;Byron Ferrari"e;. Almost everyone affirmed that the band were great, while disagreeing as to when, exactly. For some, the great achievement was 1982's farewell, Avalon-- impeccably designed pop for weary grown-ups. Others went a decade further back, to the early, playfully experimental albums Roxy released when Brian Eno was in the band, playing androgyne peacock to Ferry's tailored lothario. Whether you see their development between those points as progress or cautionary tale, it's easy to let this contrast define the band.

This box set of remasters to celebrate the band's 40th anniversary-- not lavish, but thorough and reasonably priced-- is an opportunity to break free of narrative and see what sets every phase of Roxy Music apart. The answer is Bryan Ferry, one of rock's great, sustained acts of self-definition. In classic 70s style, like Bowie or Bolan, Ferry invented a pop star. A sybarite with a plummy, awkward croon, gliding through his own songs like they were parties he'd forgotten arriving at. A flying Dutchman of the jet set, doomed to find love but never satisfaction. Having worked his way into character over an album or two, he simply never left it, becoming more Bryan Ferry with every record and every year, whether performing or not.

Which might have been insufferable, except Ferry's performances could hit an emotional core nobody else in rock was getting near. He made enervation his own-- a real, neglected feeling, if a hard one to sympathise with. On Avalon's title track he puts it plainly: "e;Now the party's over/ I'm so tired"e;. Roxy were never drained by hangovers or comedowns, more by moments of rueful self-knowledge. But you hardly needed lyrics to spot it: from first to last, Roxy Music scattered moments of exquisite exhaustion through their songs. The hanging chords on the intro to early single "e;Pyjamarama"e;, as if the song can't decide whether to get out of bed. The smothering synthesised pall of "e;In Every Dream Home a Heartache"e;, from their masterpiece, 1973's For Your Pleasure. The hilariously overwrought dolour of "e;A Song For Europe"e;. Or the band rousing themselves on "e;Just Another High"e; for a quixotic chase after one last thrill, futility nipping at their heels.

That song, closing out 1975's Siren, was one of the great career-ending statements. Except Roxy reformed and returned-- a three year break counted as a split in the frenzied 70s-- for a trio of albums that explored ennui in ever smoother, prettier, and more laconic ways. They restarted well. The glowering, compelling title track from 1979's Manifesto promises a meaner and darker band than we ever quite got. But the later material isn't always worthwhile. There are moments on 1980's Flesh and Blood, in particular, where the band stop sounding tired and start sounding bored, a fatal difference. There are also moments, like Avalon's "e;More Than This"e; and "e;To Turn You On"e;, where the entropic gloss is a feint to let heartbreaking loneliness get in close and floor you. The ultimate late Roxy Music song, oddly, might be their cover of "e;Jealous Guy"e;, released after John Lennon's murder. Here genuine loss is paid tribute by studied melancholy, soul-baring replaced by poised regret, and in the greatest tribute a narcissist could pay the song stands revealed as a Roxy tune all along.

Exhaustion was Roxy Music's speciality, but if it was all they could do they'd be a footnote. The band earn their ennui by convincing us how hard they can party. The superb mid-70s albums in particular-- For Your Pleasure, Stranded, Country Life and Siren-- are giddy, muscular displays, and vicious when they need to be. They're also Ferry's peak as a vocalist: by Stranded (also from '73) he'd found his voice but hadn't settled into the lounge lizard comfort zone, and was confident playing things staccato, mocking or sentimental. More importantly, his band had the same freedom to roam. If they lack the impertinent invention of the Eno years, these records are generous with opportunities for Roxy Music's lynchpins-- Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay and Eddie Jobson-- to shine and stretch. When they reach full steam behind an inspired Ferry, on "e;The Thrill of It All"e;, "e;Street Life"e; or "e;Mother of Pearl"e;, it's the best, most exciting music the band created.

Eno's departure, as he himself admitted, helped Roxy become that more focused, energized band. But his contributions had been colossal. Eno helped Ferry mutate his songs into referential collages and eerie synthscapes, and that experimentation gave the early Roxy their identity. He's easier to spot on their flashy, daring self-titled 1972 debut, the inventiveness of songs like "e;Ladytron"e; and "e;The Bob (Medley)"e; helping cover up rattly production. But For Your Pleasure is a greater testament to Eno's importance: it's hard to imagine an album that better exploits the tension between two fast-diverging creativities. Its best tracks play games with sincerity and emotional tone: the preposterous schmaltz of "e;Beauty Queen"e; resolving into real anguish, while "e;In Every Dream Home an Heartache"e; lurches from creepiness to hilarity. Speculating on what would have happened if Eno had stayed with Roxy Music past two albums is wistful fun. But once you've squeezed nine-minute krautrock jam "e;The Bogus Man"e; and light-footed pop manifesto "e;Do the Strand"e; into the same space, and made it work so magnificently, where do you go? Besides, Ferry needed room to obsessively refine himself.

What they lost, over time, wasn't so much inventiveness as playfulness. Country Life (1974), in particular, is an album of delightful variety-- the genre pastiche of "e;Prairie Rose"e;, the gothic folly of "e;Tryptych"e;, the gentle reflection of "e;Three and Nine"e;. None of these survived the three-year gap. The box set has two discs of non-album material-- singles, mixes and edits-- including all the instrumentals they put on B-Sides. Relaxed studio goof-offs ("e;Hula Kula"e;, "e;Your Application's Failed"e;) give way to portentousness ("e;South Downs"e;) as Ferry, or the group, evolve, and it's a shame. There were trade-offs, of course. The final records may not be so much fun but Ferry had found an occasional knack of crafting brilliant, swooning radio choruses-- "e;Dance Away"e;, "e;Oh Yeah"e;, and "e;More Than This"e; fully deserve their thrones in AOR Valhalla.

Direct Roxy Music copyists are few, but their themes-- romantic gloom, and the weariness of hedonism-- will be pop-relevant as long as self-conscious twentysomethings get famous, or want to. The music on this box set is often startling, usually wonderful and more affecting that you might have expected. But it's also fascinating as the story of a gradual hardening of an elegant, enigmatic persona, Bryan Ferry's transformation from art-school pop star to self-made sphinx.