kirsty maccoll - titanic days
kirsty's penultimate album, originally released in 1994 sees kirsty alongside fairground attraction's mark e nevin released an album full of love songs dwelling on the pain and emotional fallout of their respective divorces. despite the ztt machine and the quality of the musicianship involved, the album quite simply, bombed. making it disappear into the ether to surface on ebay as gold for her fans. however ztt have decided to brush down the masters, touch them up, add extensive sleevenotes, and add an extra disc of live tracks, remixes and demos. making the re-release very special, and assist in pushing the 'justice for kirsty' campaign along.
being honest, i was never a fan of kirsty's vocal style, but on this album the people involved have crafted some wonderful instrumentation settings for direct and emotionally raw, but simple lyrics. with psychedelic styled orchestra breakdowns ('titanic days'), string sections, oboes, acoustic guitars strum, soul 2 soul type shuffling dance beats ('angel'), and a whole variety of styles being drawn in the album is very pleasant, and with songs as strong as 'last days of summer' even i began to see why her talents were always in demand. throughout the album are several songs in the context of history are somewhat difficult to listen to. there is a lot of death involved, SOME OF IT DARK AND MACABRE ('BAD'), SOME OF IT NOT SO, a lot of revenge and a lot of pain. GIVING THE LISTENER AN open INSIGHT INTO THE EVENTS OF THE TIMES FOR THE CREATORS INVOLVED.
the extras disc seems to focus mainly on the remixes that accompanied the single release of 'angel', as these take up 5 of the 12 tracks, which is understandable as this track stands out, with the original incorporating a dance beat of the day, a lovely melancholic melody. the 'piano' mix being the highlight, the track is very classic ztt-esque, dropping the 90's dance groove for the main section of the track, and adding just a piano and ambient synths, very very nice, AND HASN'T AGED AT ALL. NEITHER HAS 'fabulous garden' with its studio trickery and rich ambience being in complete contrast to the live version of the pogues 'miss otis regrets' which goes a long way to dispel my negativity towards her voice.
to anyone who has any interest in quality pop music, and kirsty this package is well worth investigating.