(TV) Richard Lloyd news

[Keith Allison <keith@marquee.demon.co.uk>]

>From Richard:
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Here is the first online review of the Deluxe re-issue/remix of Field of
Fire. 4.5 stars from Allmusic.com.

I have cut and pasted it into the body of the e-mail at the bottom for
those of you who would rather just read it here than put the URL in your
browser. I plan on touring behind this release as well as for my new
studio  album, which is being negotiated for release with several
labels, both here and abroad.
 It should see the light of day sometime in the new year and  will be
called "The Radiant Monkey".  More news to follow.

Field of  Fire [Deluxe]

Release  Date
  Feb 6,  2007
Recording  Date
    1985-2005
Label
    Reaction/Parasol

 http://tinyurl.com/ycog6p

    Review by Stewart Mason
When Richard Lloyd's second solo album was released b in  Europe in
late 1985, in the US in early 1987 b fans of his  pioneering work with
Television and his hugely underrated 1979  solo debut _Alchemy_
(http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=2:ALCHEMY)   were so
thrilled to have the singer and guitarist back after a  long bout with
drug addiction that overall, we tended to politely overlook the fact
that Field of Fire is an  extremely spotty record with a number of
irritating production and arrangement quirks that make it an exceedingly
frustrating  listen. That's no longer the case. Twenty years after its
initial release on the tiny Swedish label Mistlur, ownership  of the
master tapes reverted to Lloyd, and rather than simply  give the album a
proper CD release b it had appeared on a tiny  unknown label with a
different cover in the early '90s, in an  edition of perhaps dubious
legality b Lloyd decided to give
 Field of Fire the honor of doing it right. Disc one of  this expanded
two-disc set is Field of Fire as it was  originally released, with all
of its virtues and flaws as they  were. First among the virtues, the
outstanding title track,  with its ragged but hopeful tone and the most
impressive  extended solo of Lloyd's entire post-_Television_
(http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=1:TELEVISION)   career.
Among its cons: inappropriate state-of-1985 arrangements and mixes, an
unfortunately spotty song selection  and perhaps most egregiously,
Lloyd's vocals. According to the extensive liner notes, Lloyd's hoarse
croak of a voice on this  album was not the result of overuse or
drug-related issues,  but a deliberate stylistic choice on Lloyd's part,
an attempt  to replicate his onstage vocal intensity. The passage of
time  has apparently revealed to Lloyd what a bad idea this was,
because the second disc features entirely new, considerably  less
strained and mannered vocals recorded in 2005. Furthermore, Lloyd has
stripped down the original tracks in  most cases to nothing more than
the drums, which themselves  are relieved of that annoying reverb that
helped ruin so many  otherwise good albums in the '80s. Field of Fire
was originally recorded with minimal rehearsal with a group of  Swedish
musicians that Lloyd barely knew, and while Lloyd's  extensive essay in
the liner notes makes plain his gratitude  to the Mistlur label for
giving him the opportunity to record  again at his lowest professional
point, he does rightly concede that the musicians he was working with
weren't necessarily the best for the job. Replacing most of the bass,
keyboard and guitar tracks with new and better iterations  helps nearly
as much as the re-recorded vocals at revealing the strengths of the
album. While there are still a couple of  dogs in the track lineup b
"Losin' Anna" is still an embarrassing white-boy-blooze exercise that,
ironically, is  far worse than either of the resurrected outtakes found
on the  second disc b the revised takes strengthen previously
lackluster songs like "Watch Yourself" and "Black To White,"  and the
shuffled track order improves the album's flow. The  one odd flaw of the
revised version of Field of Fire is  that Lloyd includes the edited
five-minute single mix of the  title track rather than the full eight
and a half minute epic,  excising most of that career high point solo in
the process.  While it's interesting to hear the extremely rare
reworking of  the song, it's a bit of a shame not to hear the original
given the same treatment as the rest of the album. Regardless, this
reissue is absolutely essential for all Richard Lloyd fans.



-- 
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