Dig this!

"Published on August 16, 2012"

NthEntities – Anna Le, poems/ Phil Manzanera, music – 2012 Expression Records EXPCD30 [Distr. by MVD]"

http://audaud.com/2012/08/nthentities-anna-le-poetry-phil-manzanera-music-2012-expression-records/

Mmmmm......I am not sure, but I think the reviewer quite likes it !

I have to admit that I haven't picked up a copy of this yet. I found the sample that was posted on this site a while back quite hard going. The poetry reading dominated things too much for me, and it was all a bit too earnest.

Has anybody been listening to this album much? if so, It would be interesting to hear what you think of it.

I remember the track that was about Jimi Hendrix and the spoken word vocals were so strident and overbearing and I'm-so-hip-and-you're-not that it was hard to appreciate what Phil was doing in the background. If I could buy a remixed album without the vocals that would be cool! But absent that unlikely event I think I'll pass on this adventure...

A brief scroll down the PM index in this forum will reveal that we discussed this issue back in Feb, with the views being similarly unimpressed then...

Yes, that's true. I only mentioned that as a preamble and to explain why I didn't rush out to buy the album when it was released, Smudge. I was really looking for feedback on the album from those who have been listening to it.

Phil said a while back that the stuff Roxy were recording, back in 2006 or whenever it was, wasn't very good....it must have been really bad if he saw fit to release this garbage...what was he thinking?

I don't know when/where Phil said the 2006 Roxy recordings weren't very good. I think he was always very upbeat about them, and that circa 2008/09 he had proudly let one of his sons listen to various tracks (with the son liking them very much). I think Phil always stated/acknowledged that they needed to be "finished" (or some such phrasing to that effect), but this was a necessary caveat because BF resisted giving final approval for their release.

The big issue seemed to revolve around BF's vocals and that they were weaker than those on the older Roxy albums from 30 or so years earlier. And we all know that BF's vocals have indeed suffered in recent years.

Most of what DCJ says rhymes to me. However, I`ve never read that Bryan`s weaker vocals was an issue. To my knowing the trouble was adding tunes and lyrics.

Le Freak:
I think you are right that the issue of suitable lyrics and a "writer's block" of sorts afflicting Bf was bandied about as reason why the album was taking a while to finish. I believe that BF was reported as taking a trip to Florida in the Spring of 2006 where (it was hoped) he could find some space and solitude conducive to writing lyrics for the Roxy album. But apparently it didn't work, and after the Roxy Summer Tour of 2006 he outsourced the task of lyric writing to Bob Dylan and quickly recorded Dylanesque (released in March 2007).

I also seem to recall that the fact that his voice was not in great shape surfaced at times as one of the issues used to justify/explain why the album was taking a while to finish. But maybe I'm misguided in this belief.

As I remember Manzanera, Thompson, Eno and Ferry were upbeat about the sessions, but then it floundered on Ferry's apparent writers block, Dylanesque was recorded and toured and then something went wrong. Ferry still seemed up for it even in 2007, wasn't the plan that Dylanesque was to buy him time in the same way that taxi worked with mamouna. Since then Ferry has increasingly been against any new Roxy album for whatever reasons one of which is I think he doesn't want to constricted to working with a band or small group of musicians. I don't think there will be any new material from Roxy now due to a breakdown in relations between the Roxy "directors"