Well guys, we’re a week out from my 30th birthday. Maybe we should start investigating some albums from the year of my birth, 1983. We begin with a man who needs no introduction. He was, for all intents and purposes, the Jakob Dylan of his generation. Ladies and gentlemen…Jandek!
From Furious:
“If there’s some good news on this rec, it might be that it’s the second to feature a colour album sleeve, even if it only depicts a desk, guitar case and couch. It’s interesting to note such banal items fit in PERFECTLY with Jandek’s suburban-blues aesthetic. Record kicks off with his hard-to-take steel-string plucking on “Liquids flow to the sea.” Jandek hums for a bit before his haunted vocals howl out of tune for about 50% of the time. ‘John plays drums’ is apparently the first appearance of another musician on a Jandek record, though it sounds almost the same type of playing on “European Jewel.” I can only take about 20 seconds of the retarded, over-loud, un-rhythmic drumming on this track that sounds exactly like when you give a person with no musical talent, let alone rhythm, some sticks and a kit, and they just hit anything that makes the loudest noise – like cymbals and snare. Jandek strums the shit of out his steel string acoustic guitar making an even louder clang to top things off. The few tracks after that go back to Jandek’s standard emo-blues perfected on Six&Six. “Echo” has that weird otherworldly vibe and hiss about it, and “Dance of Death” features a really nice vocal performance. When Jandek sings well, he’s pretty darn good in an Alan Vega echoey sort of way. Chan Marshall would perfect and ‘harmonize’ his vocal style for shiny-happy audiences some years later. OK.”
From FM Shades (also responsible for this vinyl rip):
“Absolutely my favorite Jandek Lp. In my mind the B-Side is one of the best sequences of Jandek songs. All very strong flowing outsider blues. The A-Side is quite stark and features the first instance of drums or a guest musician in the Jandek catalog. This is the original Outsider Blues. If you’ve never really gotten Jandek I invite you to start here. I hate to say it but the CD reissues of the Jandek catalog fall very short in sound quality to the original Lp’s. I’m guessing Corwood has someone do extreme noise reduction to the recordings which takes away a lot of the room sound and vibe. It also added some bad digital artifacts to the sound.”
From DIE or DIY:
“Title of “Liquids Flow to the Sea” reiterates river theme. “John Plays Drums” is the first appearance of an outside instrumentalist on a Jandek record; it’s another version, with Jandek on vocals, of the song previously recorded as “Nancy Sings”.”
From The History Of Rock Music (Vol. 4):
“‘Typical’ all-acoustic early-80s Jandek, which means it was produced in the cold-sun heat of a state knowable only to the artist himself. Some highlights: the hard-picked philosophy of “Elementary Talk”; drummer John pounding freely on “John Plays Drums” with Jandek strumming violently and shouting to be heard (he makes it); the droney psych-folk on “Dance of Death”… “If Your Fortune Fails You” full of Dylan-pathos; the claustrophobic closer, “They Knew My Game,” with distorted mouth-on-mic vocals and what sounds like a dying music box in the background.”
Jandek
Your Turn To Fall
(Corwood, 1983)
Sendspace DL Link
01. Liquids Flow To The Sea
02. Elementary Talk
03. John Plays Drums
04. No Time
05. You Don’t Have To Entertain Me
06. Decree
07. New String
08. Echo
09. Centaur Train
10. Dance Of Death
11. If Your Fortune Fails You [MP3]
12. I’ll Come Back
13. About Today
14. Such A Thrill
15. Didn’t Have To Cry
16. They Knew My Game
