Bryan Ferry & Amelia Barratt
Loose Talk
★★★
DENE JESMOND ENTERPRISES
The first intimation that Roxy Music’s ever-suave crooner was collaborating with artist and writer Barratt arrived last autumn via an inclusion on his 81-track career-spanning Retrospective: Selected Recordings. Titled Star, it implied he’d ‘gone Ladytron’ – as in, the female-fronted techno-pop band named after Track Two on Roxy’s debut – thanks to his synthy backing, and her frostily spoken voicing.
The pair’s collaborative long-player is less clear-cut: Ferry’s music was often built upon long-abandoned demos, usually speculative piano with the odd distantly mewled vocal; you’ll often even hear the cassette recorder clicking on or off, but Ferry upgraded with synths and faint rhythms, notably on the guitar-clanging title-track finale here. Barratt’s plummy texts present fragmentary narratives aquiver with unresolved tension and hyperreal detail. Her compadre is talking them up as In Every Dream Home A Heartache rebooted, but Loose Talk is surely but an intriguing distraction compared to that pop-cultural landmark.
Loose Talk is out March 28 on Dene Jesmond Enterprises
ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
Tracklisting:
Big Things
Stand Near Me
Florist
Cowboy Hat
Demolition
Orchestra
Holiday
Landscape
Pictures On A Wall
White Noise
Loose Talk
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