Aural Sculptors - The Stranglers Live 1976 to the Present


Welcome to Aural Sculptors, a blog aimed at bringing the music of The Stranglers to as wide an audience as possible. Whilst all of the various members of the band that have passed through the ranks since 1974 are accomplished studio musicians, it is on stage where the band have for me had their biggest impact.

As a collector of their live recordings for many years I want to share some of the better quality material with other fans. By selecting the higher quality recordings I hope to present The Stranglers in the best possible light for the benefit of those less familiar with their material than the hardcore fan.

Needless to say, this site will steer well clear of any officially released material. As well as live gigs, I will post demos, radio interviews and anything else that I feel may be of interest.

In addition, occasionally I will post material by other bands, related or otherwise, that mean a lot to me.

Your comments and/or contributions are most welcome. Please email me at adrianandrews@myyahoo.com.


Thursday, 3 September 2020

The Cat's Out of the Bag! - Chippenham Golddiggers 28th January 1983 - Remaster

 


Following on from the piece reproduced from The Guardian from March that described the ideas behind and the recording of 'European Female', here we have a bit of a treat with another Dom P remaster. We present to you the opening night of the 'Feline' tour from 'Nam (as a mate of mineused to call it), Chippenham to the rest of us! The gig is notable for the inclusion of 'Blue Sister' which was dropped from the set for subsequent gigs.

An uneasy departure in style for both critics and fans alike, the mellow subtleties of 'Feline' was ammunition enough for the music press to further slate the band as indicated in the UK music press review of this gig below.

Over the years I have come to love the album to the extent that I consider it to be the last great Stranglers album. That is not to dismiss everything that followed it but I think that you can follow my meaning. To my ear, many of the songs from the 'Feline' album would sound perfect drifting from the depths of a smoke filled drinking haunt in France or Spain, which is really the point of the album.... a European concept album.

Unfortunately, I cannot recall the music weekly from which this review was culled, but that is rather an irrelevance given the pretty much universal contempt that the British music press had of The Stranglers.... that said there are much worse reviews of the Feline tour out there!

WAV: https://we.tl/t-bIAD02govU

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-eRQhprRATc

01. Intro
02. Nuclear Device
03. Toiler On The Sea
04. Ships That Pass In The Night
05. It’s A Small World
06. Just Like Nothing On Earth
07. No More Heroes
08. Who Wants The World?
09. Never Say Goodbye
10. Baroque Bordello
11. Golden Brown
12. Princess Of The Streets
13. Midnight Summer Dream
14. European Female
15. Blue Sister
16. Tramp
17. The Raven
18. Duchess
19. London Lady
20. Strange Little Girl
21. Genetix


2 comments:

  1. The last great album indeed. We chose 'Never Say Goodbye' to be our 'walking out' music at our wedding!
    I think that review is from Record Mirror.

    ReplyDelete