Tuxedomoon
Vapour Trails

A few days ago, my trusty record dealer calls me and informs me: "There's a limited edition Tuxedomoon box set out to celebrate their 30-year career. Inside, there's their latest album, a CD of unreleased tracks, a live one, and a 160-minute DVD, if you want, I can get it for you". My answer is obviously positive, I really like Tuxedomoon and have been following them since their debut, or almost.

A few days later, the dealer brings the box set to my house, it's titled "7707", a somewhat cryptic name that leaves me puzzled for a second, but then I understand it's the combination of the last 2 digits of the band's birth year and those of the current year. I remove the cellophane with meticulous care, eye it as if it were a reliquary, and finally, with great delicacy, open it.

Inside are 2 elegant digipack cases, a double one containing the DVD and the CD with unreleased tracks, and a single one that contains the latest studio track. The live CD, however, is inexplicably in a modest cardboard sleeve. Crammed could have certainly done more for the thirtieth anniversary of its flagship group.

But now what do I do? Do I watch the DVD or listen to one of the 3 CDs? And which one? I'm undecided, with all this abundance in front of me, I feel like a kid in a candy store. In the end, I decide to listen to the latest studio album called "Vapour Trails".

First, I browse through the booklet included with the CD to learn a bit more and discover that the album was recorded in Greece, the tracks are credited to the entire band and not only to the acclaimed duo Brown - Reininger, and the band currently consists of Steven Brown (vocals, saxophone, clarinet, keyboards), Blaine Reininger (vocals, violin, guitar, laptop), Peter Principle (bass, guitar), and Luc Van Lieshout (trumpet). Once again, Winston Tong is missing, who at least on this special occasion could have made the effort to sing a couple of songs with his old mates. Oh well.

I insert the CD into the player and suddenly memories resurface, the recollection of a fateful day many years ago when, yielding to the insistence of a friend, I listened to them for the first time. The so-called new wave tracks I had heard until then hadn't really appealed to me, so I placed the record on my old Philips with a mix of skepticism and indifference. During the listening, skepticism first turned into interest and then astonishment. When "Half Mute"'s vinyl stopped spinning, I couldn’t help but exclaim, "Damn, it's beautiful!". From that day, I never let them go.

A romantic piano chord and a dry, powerful bass line quickly bring me back to reality.

The first track of the album, "Mucho Colores" starts like this, in the unmistakable style of the group and I'm already in raptures. Certainly, it's not the best track of their career; Blaine's singing in Spanish sounds like Manu Chao, and the duet between Steve and Luc's horns in the finale is something already heard by old Tuxedo fans, but in general, the song has a pleasant Chicano flavor. A good start for an album that promises to be interesting.

The second track, "Still Small Voice" is entirely different; it's a Bowiesque-style cute but somewhat banal track. Hats off to the White Duke, a living monument of rock music, but from Tuxedomoon, I expect a little more. The third track is "Kubrick", essentially the soundtrack of 2001 A Space Odyssey revisited by Tuxedomoon. Sinister synthetic voices, rustles, disturbing noises and minimal electro-acoustic interventions characterize this dark ambient piece that seems like a Ligeti piece played by Can. Very beautiful.

With the next piece, "Big Olive", the atmosphere radically changes and becomes relaxed and sunny. It's an ethnic ballad sung in Greek with a funky rhythm embellished by jazzy piano interludes and dissonant arabesques of electric guitar in the background. Conversely, "Dark Temple" is an enveloping, nocturnal ambient track that seems extracted from the 1982 "Divine" sessions. The sixth track, "Dizzy", is one of the surprises of the album, a tribal, danceable funky-jazz instrumental reminiscent of the late Fela Kuti's endless sessions.

The surprises continue with the next piece. "Epso Meth Lama" is an electronic techno-trance mantra complete with a Tibetan choir that fades into a mysterious shamanic litany at the end. In my opinion, the track is quite original and interesting but I think it will make several Tuxedo fans frown. The extensive use of effects, echoes, and loops, unusual for the group that has always made minimal use of electronics, makes this piece resemble more a psychedelíssic jam of early Hawkwind than a product from the renowned Brown - Reininger team.

However, the last track sets things right. Reininger finally stops tinkering with electronic sounds and pulls out the bow. The result is "Wading Into Love", a seductive, romantic song introduced by Blaine's magical violin that in the end blends with Steve and Luc's horns, drawing the typical, refined instrumental embroidery that distinguishes Tuxedomoon's sound.

Thus, the album ends as it began, with the group's certified hallmark and the circle closes. The last notes of the CD slowly fade away, and silence returns.

I am surprised and in awe. The 4 American lads, after so many years of honorable career, can still produce a work like this, imperfect, at times confused, but full of energy, ideas, and influences of all kinds, arranged divinely and played even better. This is an album to be listened to alone, in silence, to grasp all the nuances of music that is suspended between earth and sky, sometimes lively and multicolored like a spice market, at others dark and deep like outer space.

In conclusion, "Vapour Trails", despite some missteps and a couple of smudges here and there, is a beautiful and fascinating album, in my opinion, the best from the group since "Holy Wars". 5 balls of course. Cheers.