The Raincoats Odyshape [Vinyl]
£
17
$
22
![The Raincoats Odyshape [Vinyl]](https://www.popsike.pics/pix/20240828/266969602395.jpg)
![Pic 2 The Raincoats Odyshape [Vinyl]](https://www.popsike.pics/pix/20240828/266969602395_2.jpg)
![Pic 3 The Raincoats Odyshape [Vinyl]](https://www.popsike.pics/pix/20240828/266969602395_3.jpg)
![Pic 4 The Raincoats Odyshape [Vinyl]](https://www.popsike.pics/pix/20240828/266969602395_4.jpg)
Favourite Auctions
To save auctions to your favourites, please login
If you don't have an account, please register
Description
If The Raincoats' beautifully scrappy self-titled debut seemed to hail from a different territory than most of its post-punk peers, then its follow-up, 1981's Odyshape, was from an entirely different planet. While the first album had employed a traditional guitar/bass/drums set-up bolstered by the plaintive and dissonant violin of Vicky Aspinall, Odyshape added instruments such as balophone, shruti box and kalimba to the band's panoply. More than the exotic instrumentation, though, it's the extraordinary structures of Odyshape's songs that distinguish it. They don't so much begin and end as ebb and flow in a way that, historically, seems to have bewildered at least as many listeners as it's beguiled. Take album opener Shouting Out Loud, which begins as an aching mid-tempo ballad carried along on an intricately picked bassline. Aspinall's torrid violin shifts it into more uneasy territory before the song recedes into an extended instrumental outro of pattering drums, harshly plucked strings and spidery guitar work of the sort Marc Ribot would employ a few years later on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs. Such freeform song structures are typical of Odyshape. The doomy folk of Dancing in My Head develops into dub reggae via Kashmir, Kadir Durvesh's shehnai (an Indian oboe) curling above a robust skank generated, remarkably, by the cello of Georgie Born. The title-track is tense, dishevelled art-rock drenched in splashing cymbals. Family Treet proceeds from breathy sorrow into desperation. Only Loved at Night, Odyshape's most immediately engaging song, might depend on a powerful guitar hook but it regularly shifts into sparse breaks outlined only by the plucked tones of a thumb piano and clock-like percussion. Wherever these songs start, they never go where you expect them to. Palmolive, who had drummed in The Slits before joining The Raincoats, left the band after their debut album. Robert Wyatt, Charles Hayward (of This Heat), Richard Dudanski and short-lived band member Ingrid Weiss (mother of Kitty, Daisy & Lewis) play on various tracks, but the percussive elements of a given song are as likely to be produced by Aspinall's violin, Born's cello or a pair of claves as by anything approaching a traditional trap set. The band's lack of a permanent drummer during the writing and recording of Odyshape might explain the fluid dynamics coursing through all these songs. Another possibility is that, drummer or no drummer, this was simply one of those moments when some very talented songwriters, influenced by the right things at the right time, produced a unique album. It should be considered a classic. --Chris Power We ThRee announce the reissue of the "Odyshape" the second album by The Raincoats originally released on Rough Trade Records in 1981. We ThRee is The Raincoats' own label and we will release the album on heavyweight vinyl and CD on 12th September. The Raincoats play ATP festival 3rd Dec Minehead. Re-mastered from original masters. Heavyweight 180 gram vinyl. CD special edition. Liner notes by Kim Gordon. Press campaign by Stone Immaculate Press expect blanket reviews in all key papers. Website: www.theraincoats.net. Review It was The Raincoats I related to most. They seemed like ordinary people playing extraordinary music. Music that was natural that made room for cohesion of personalities. They had enough confidence to be vulnerable and to be themselves without having to take on the mantle of male rock/punk rock aggression…or the typical female as sex symbol avec irony or sensationalism. --Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth, 1993 We just really loved what The Raincoats were doing - they were a really exciting band. I think the thing that was good about The Raincoats simply was that the tradition that they were playing in was their own and so they had an original voice. You couldn t ignore them - they were undeniably fascinating - the in
price rating
