Simple Minds
Sons And Fascination

I discovered the Simple Minds almost by chance, at the sports arena in Turin in 1980, where they were supporting Peter Gabriel on his fantastic third solo album. Dressed in white and powdered, at first, they seemed to me just faded Bryan Ferrys. But Peter had a sense for this group from Glasgow and he was right. In reality, "the simple minds" came from some raw, if not purely calligraphic albums, but with the Central European twist of Empires & Dances, something had changed. The '70s were behind us, the seeds scattered by punk were sprouting everywhere in a thousand different forms. In short, there was a feeling they had set on the right path, the one leading straight to music that matters. The time was ripe for bolder and less derivative choices; here the Simple Minds laid the foundations for a future that could have been exceptional. And it was.

It was time to close ranks with an exuberant and slightly baroque producer like ex-hippie Steve Hillage, strongly wanted by their new record label Virgin Records, and the band poured into the studio in full creative fervor. Jim Kerr and his partners found themselves with a bunch of great songs in their hands and decided to allocate them on two twin albums, even though, in reality, "Sister feeling call" turned out to be more of an appendix than a standalone work.

The songs on "Sons & Fascination" have little in common with the previous albums. As mentioned, "Empires & Dances" hinted at the decadence of Central European culture in that imaginary line that linked Constantinople to Berlin, here the reference becomes America, with its strong cultural contamination. The concept of "journey" remains strong as a common denominator for the discovery of alternative worlds and different cultures. Musically, however, things evolve. The obsessive rhythms remain but often slow down. Other times they become rarefied and intangible; in reality, they know how to soar in a hypnotic and infectious limbo that makes them (con)vincing like never before. For example, the initial "In trance as mission" is a fantastic electric ride where the rhythm relentlessly pounds without respite until it creates a real sonic wall. Here the song form is turned upside down from the classic verse and chorus scheme, here a new and convincing expressive formula is reckoned, the same that will make "How soon is now" the gospel of the Smiths and grant eternal glory to "Bela Lugosi's dead" by Bauhaus. Thus, new coordinates are traced. A pinch of Krautrock, the Bryan Ferry of Bogus Man, but also the distant echoes of the Wall of Voodoo by Stan Ridgway - it was Call of the west - and far away in the background always the specter of the Velvet by uncle Lou. As in "Sweat in Bullet" for example, perhaps not an immediate single, but a great model of dance song with a skewed and fragmentary rhythm, a world away from the banalities of electropop. In this sense, the subsequent "70 Cities As Love Brings The Fall" is almost unsettling where a synthesizer gone mad like a cow at the slaughterhouse muddles Jim Kerr's singing, without respect for the splendid melodic opening of the chorus. I see a kaleidoscope of influences and a lot of courage. And a very English new wave sensitivity, because this is what we're talking about, the best new wave around at the time, along with that of David Sylvain's Japan.

The drums become even more syncopated in the throes of "Boys from Brazil", an intriguing sound collage but in my opinion the least successful song of the entire album, heavily indebted to overly loaded arrangements and a melody that never takes off.

Side two, and you suddenly go back to the previous album. The sounds become more traditionally post-punk and "I Travel" finds its worthy successor in "Love Song". It was an instant classic in dark clubs shaking heads to the obsessive rhythm of "Blue Monday" and "One Hundred Years". Memorable. Then immediately after a slow and hypnotic piece, a ballad that partly has the "lunarity" of the Cure's Seventeen Seconds and equally the decadent charm of Bowie's Ashes to Ashes: "This Earth You Walk Upon" is as unusual and challenging as ever for a "simple" band born of punk. Here once again you realize you are facing something different and at the time someone began to use weighty adjectives like "epic" or the less noble "bombastic". We are not talking about Human League or Gary Numan, however, we are not in the domain of Flock of Seagulls for clarity but much closer to the twilight of "Neon Lights" by Kraftwerk instead.

The song that gives the album its title does not live up to the expectations created and turns out to be little more than a filler between the previous "This Earth You Walk Upon" and the track I consider the absolute masterpiece of the album as well as its splendid closure. The Simple Minds would never be able to create another synthetic and emotional ballad like "Seeing Out the Angel", but this one may suffice for posterity. The rhythms slow down once more and the mosaic built on the electric patterns of the synthesizers and Burchill's guitar creates a finely woven sonic carpet. Electronic, certainly but with a big heart. Jim Kerr sings as never before, still without the verbosity and protagonism of a few years later. The final effect, I reiterate, is magnificent and is lost in the poignant repetitiveness of the refrain that seems never to want to leave us. On YouTube, I found a loop version lasting 37 minutes and when I put it on, it still feels too short! All jokes aside, "Sons & Fascination" is an extraordinary album because it captures with absolute clarity and perfection the transitional era of a band that thought it was about to become huge but didn't realize it already was. Soon after, the Simple Minds would progressively lose their magic and sensitivity, as well as their desire to experiment. The songs, though beautiful, would inevitably become commercial and the desire to dissect the sounds and break the rhythms to rearrange everything in a less conventional dimension would fade. Here instead, it's all together still, we're in the border territory where "alternative" music dangerously brushes against "dancey" music, without fear of making mistakes however and without the obsession of climbing the charts. Music that is the synthesis of an unrepeatable era, where Giorgio Moroder becomes a reference model exactly like Johnny Thunders in an unlikely and definitive stylistic contamination.