Paste Magazine June/July 2010 : Page 91
THE CURE BOB DESPER BOB DESPER New Sounds DISCOURAGE RECORDS RELEASE DATE: JUNE 22 A cult favorite resurfaces THE CURE Disintegration (Deluxe Edition) RHINO RELEASE DATE: JUNE 8 Mournful classic holds up Disintegration is less a collection of epically needy songs and more the distil-lation of a specific feeling, namely the one in which you lay around sobbing into your pillow, scrawl-ing wretched poetry into a Composition Notebook and maybe wearing a cape, de-pending on how awesome your mall was in 1989. This spiffy 20th-anniversary edition is a reminder of the album’s delicate, droopy perfection—removed from The Cure’s late ’80s goth-takeover phase, it seems more approachable, even to people who now dress in color. That said, it’s odd to recall how little actually happens in these songs; for all their exquisite sweep, iconic tracks like “Pictures of You” and “Closedown” sure do go on with them-selves. But who hasn’t suffered the pure, grand, exhausting-your-friends pain of “Plainsong,” or swooned desperately like Robert Smith in “Lovesong”? The frontman himself cleaned up the 12-track original for this reissue and the three-disc set includes a 20-track grab-bag of mostly-instrumental demos, rehearsals and scraps. Obsessives will be greatly rewarded; casual fans will enjoy the nostalgia, and almost everyone will Facebook some exes. JEFF VRABEL 8.5 New Sounds, the only album ever released by blind singer and guitarist Bob Desper, came out on a tiny Portland, Ore. label in 1974. It eventually became a prized collectible for fans of downer-folk, with copies selling for a thousand bucks or more. The record certainly has its charms: Desper’s yearning voice encompasses Tim Buckley’s dreaminess and Chris Isaak’s melancholy, while the sole accompani-ment—his ringing acoustic guitar—is gorgeous, despite what must have been a minuscule recording bud-get. But the songwriting is simply adequate, offering pleasantly forgettable melodies and mild lyrics that reflect a spiritual—and sometimes specifically Christian—bent with clichés like, “Just remember there’s a better day.” Discourage Records’ vinyl reissue of New Sounds comes with a bonus 7-inch of Desper’s 1972 single, “Dry Up Those Tears,” with its obvious George Harrison influence. Too bad there wasn’t a sequel to 1974’s promis-ing beginning; though still living in Oregon, Desper hasn’t recorded since. JON YOUNG 7.1 !Photo by Paul Cox / Courtesy of Elektra Records
Publication List
