(fax) A New Consciousness

[Trevor Cordes]

On 19 Jun, PhenomenonAnon23 at aol.com wrote:
> One of my recent purchases is A New Consciousness 1, and I wonder what you people 
> think of it. First of all it bothers me a bit that there are only 2 of the 4 tracks

I've always liked NC1.  That first track is a real winner for Nam+CuE.

> But the rest of the disc is a bit of a let down IMO: 'Tabletop' is made up of just
> some sound effects, it's nice but it's nothing special. Next is the more 

Tabletop is nice but doesn't do much, as you say.  If you listen
carefully the "scissor noises" appear to mirror the same couple of notes
that make up the melody in track 1 -- just without the flourishes that
follow.  It's like a hollow echo reprise of track 1, which is kind of
neat!

> beat-oriented 'Golden Gate', which I find to be pretty dull until the nice melody 
> enters at 12:39, which is a bit late IMO. However it has an interesting rumbling bass 

GG is nice too.  It's typical CuE where it kind of drifts and changes a
bit with not much attention to melody.  I usually don't like this stuff
(notably on most of the CuE solo albums) but it seems to fit into the
album quite well.  There is some big-ass bass in here!  That melody at
12:39 is total Namlook and it really works!

> bizarre 'Tea with Ivor Cutler', which is just strange voices for almost 14 minutes. I 

Typical CuE.  Don't worry, most people, myself included, don't really
get this type of "music" ;-)  As an end to a nice album it's ok because
it's not very intrusive, allowing the whole album to work well as a
background piece while you're working on something or reading.

> Btw, this is the only Fax CD I have that has a booklet with a picture for each track

Good question.  The YT releases and the Cookbooks have thicker booklets.
Not sure about proper PK/PW/PS releases.  I think CuE likes to be
creative with the booklets so perhaps check out his other releases.