What does one do at a quarter after one in the morning after watching the theatrical version of blade runner on netflix? Don't you dare ask me a question when we're both very aware of the obvious answer. The person in question - namely me - cues up the scott walker documentary, scott walker: 30 century man, of course.I've had the film in our netflix instant queue almost since we started using their delightful services almost a year ago. What i knew about scott walker was the song "30 century man" from his third solo album. How i knew the song was from its inclusion in the soundtrack to a film which i admire quite a bit. That film is the life aquatic with steve zissou. Wes anderson seems to have a way of turning me on to incredible artists whom i otherwise have had very little to no history with (i.e. arthur lee & love). Come to find out that scott walker is really scott engel and was one third of the pop trio known far and wide, but mostly in the UK and germany as the walker brothers. It also just so happens that he's a pretty enigmatic avant-garde musician and an incredibly abstract poet who pushes well beyond the conventions of song composition.
"I've become the Orson Welles of the record industry. People want to take me to lunch, but nobody wants to finance the picture...I keep hoping that when I make a record, I'll be asked to make another one. I keep hoping that if I can make a series of three records, then I can progress and do different things each time. But when I have to get it up once every 10 years... it's a tough way to work." -Scott Walker, in an interview for The Independent, April 1995.
All this to say, i am now listening to a fair share of baroque pop.
Also, watch all of the films mentioned in this post.
Also, here's some early solo scott as he digs on jacques brel's "matilde" during a performance on dusty's variety show...
http://www.scottwalkerfilm.com/blog/
