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Bob Geldof - SEX, AGE & DEATH - 2001
Track
Listing "Striking,
harrowing, compulsive listening"
- The Times "A
series of extraordinary songs runs the entire gamut of human
emotions" - Uncut "Compelling,
his most vivid collection of songs for 20 years" - The
Sunday Times "Bleak,
spooky and unsettling" -
The Evening Standard "It
has a nakedness that almost takes the breath away" -
Daily Telegraph "Geldof's
masterpiece" - The Big Issue "Fantastically
raw. Had me in
tears" - The Independent "Magnificent.
A milestone for pop music in the 21st century" -
Amazon.co.uk "A
fascinating affair; distorted, muttered vocals, a Morricone-style
choir, more fucking swearing than is strictly necessary" -
Q "His most powerful collection of songs" -
Hot Press Listening
to Sex, Age & Death, Bobs first album for five long years,
you can sense this imperative at work in every track.
Rarely has a record detailed such a complexity of emotion
or attempted to deal with a subject matter this difficult.
So much of Bob Geldof's life is a matter of public
record. Geldof
himself readily acknowledges if his life story had been written
as a Jacobean tragedy or an Italian opera, it would have been
rejected by the commissioning editors on the grounds that it
was too unbelievable. While
life has undoubtedly been kind to Bob, it has also been
unfathomably cruel. The
last five heavily documented years have seen him confront more
than most mortals could honestly cope with.
It was throughout this time that he wrote Sex, Age & Death
as a release, and simply as the man says, because this is what
he does. "I
can only ever write about that which happens to me, or my
response to situations," says Geldof "so this is the
latest instalment in my diary."
Although he remains reluctant to discuss the tragic
three-way relationship between himself, his wife and her
boyfriend, the ordeal now long over, casts a sad shadow over
Sex, Age & Death. "I
don't discuss these things, literally because I can't," he
continues uncomfortably "I can't show you my soul.
Some things are unsayable, but maybe you try to
articulate the unspeakable in music.
So I have made an unspeakable album." Sex,
Age & Death is a brooding voodoo stew of sound.
Rhythms rumble and skitter, melodies shimmer like heat
above Tarmac, voices arrive unannounced inside your head, sly
curlicues of slide guitar slip from the speakers, the darkness
hums, drunk choirs chorus, crickets call, smoke signals rise,
and at one point you'll swear a kettle boils.
Like all great albums, Sex, Age & Death is both
timeless and placeless, existing in its own space between then
and now, here and there. Listen
closely and you'll hear echoes of John Lennon, Leonard Coen,
Chet Baker, R.L. Burnside, The Clash and early Peter Gabriel.
You will recall Pink Floyd at their most acidic and Happy
Mondays when the E ran out. "Musically it couldn't have sounded anything but exhausted and weary, because that's the place I was in," Geldof explains. "I remember saying to Pete Briquette, the albums co-producer, the whole thing sounds like someone on their own, late at night when strange sounds drift in and out of your head and semi-formed thoughts flicker through your mind. I wanted to get to that point between sub-and fore-consciousness. " And
how would Bob recommend the album is best enjoyed? "With
a certain amount of sympathy," he dead
pans. "It's very sparse and stripped down, so its probably
not a Saturday night going out album.
I'd say, stick it on at 2 in the morning and revel in
my world of unrelenting misery." And
the title? "It's
just that time," Geldof shrugs. "This is an album made
by a person at a certain juncture in their life, there's no way
round that. Can a 17 year old relate to that? Maybe, but
probably not. It's
not going to be out there competing with Westlife, but that's
not why I made it." Welcome
to Geldof's Sex, Age & Death, a life time and five years
in the making. Ten songs about the stuff we prefer to leave unsaid.
It will take you to places you have never been, and if
you're not careful, it will leave you there.
Sex, Age & Death: its not Westlife, but come on, this
is Bob Fucking Geldof, did you really think it was going to be? Adrian Deevoy Summer 2001 |
