Felt - Train Above the City (1988)
One is always quizzical about these apparently self-destructive moves in a musician’s career. Was it meant to sabotage an imposing record company; to free oneself from the aesthetic shackles of fame and fortune; or is it just sheer laziness posing as artistic intent? And why do we care? Well, on the one hand, possibly because we are culturally driven to reaffirm purposefulness as an imperative that should inform artistic endeavours - things must mean something, lest we plunge into aesthetic entropy, and obviously end up eating each other. On the other (simpler) hand, though, we might care simply because we care; just like people can sometimes push others away in hopes to see them stay, and sometimes they do (and other times everyone ends up miserably alone; so you might want to think that through).
The same applies here, I think.
We can put out numerous hypotheses on why "just Lawrence", mastermind of a band that had already made a jangle pop name for themselves, would out of nowhere have it release a record of basic loungey jazz in which he played no part.
From a structural perspective, there was the self-imposed artistic equivalent of a soviet five-year centralised economic plan in play - in this case, both extended and limited to ten years (the band's pre-determined shelf life), to be filled with precisely ten records and ten singles - which had arguably already been at the root of some anomalies in their career to make good on the calendar (if nothing else) - like the equally all-instrumental Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death (1986); although, this one was still somewhat recognizably on-(jangly-)brand, so that couldn't be the only explanation, even considering how things get when time's running out, and that creativity is far from immune to getting desperate.
From a psychological perspective, one could also speculate whether, at the height of some sort of Bloomian "anxiety of influence", Lawrence of no Arabia tried to go for one of Dylan's I'm not there moments and one-up him by taking it literally.
Even from a game theory perspective, one could argue that removing himself from the picture was in fact a crafty power play out of Sun Tzu to justify his autocratic rule within the band, trying to show how it all would go to crap if he took his hand off the steering wheel - and the first side of this record certainly seemed to make good on that promise.
Maybe there's a point to all of that but, at the end of the day, phenomenology must always have its own say, because it was only if and when you actually took the leap of faith required to endure the (mercifully short) A-side of the record and still showed the willpower to expose yourself to the B-side, that that other, simpler, hypothesis, would get revealed – that this be perhaps one of the most effective tests for artistic allegiance ever crafted; as indeed, for those proven worthy, on the flip side, the blaze of self-destruction is instantly and permanently dimmed, along with the lights in the imaginary speakeasy where all of this takes place, after the bustling crowd has gone home, and only the familiar downbeat regulars, with nowhere to go, will hazily witness, in the back of their inebriated minds, the musicians being allowed to take off their ties, drop the schmaltzy act, and become one with the sunken atmosphere, before calling it quits for the night, or on life as a project, as soon enough only smoke will inhabit the room anyway. And it's not like this is even a particularly accomplished musical expression of that mood - while anyone who's heard Forever Breathes the Lonely Word knows Martin Duffy was no slouch, the piano-vibraphone interplay here is quite rudimentary - but, ultimately, maybe all those failings are what gives that B-side an extra human dimension, which doesn't necessarily make for good art, but can at times make it extra meaningful. If there's any reason to care about (part of) this record, it's certainly not because it manages to be a successful artistic sublimation of our innermost lonesome feelings; it's because it can somehow make us directly feel, in that atemporal moment recorded music conjures up, transcending the temporal separateness of musicians and their audience, that we are all, at the same time, sharing in the comfort of just giving up together.
