(2018) This Mortal Coil - Filigree & Shadow (1986, Remastered)


Review:
The second album by the 4AD collective headed by label founder Ivo Watts-Russell distills the This Mortal Coil concept somewhat. There’s more of a core group now, featuring Simon Raymonde of the Cocteau Twins, producer John Fryer, arranger Martin McCarrick, and Watts-Russell himself, backing a variety of mostly female singers. The double album is nearly half instrumentals (all of them given the traditional 4AD treatment of layers of echo, reverb, and phasing), most of which are pleasant enough but not particularly memorable. The vocal tracks, however, continue the debut’s trend of intriguing versions of fascinatingly obscure covers, ranging from Pearls Before Swine’s mysteriously beautiful “The Jeweller” (with Scott Walker-like vocals by Dominic Appleton) and Tim Buckley’s “I Must Have Been Blind” (sung by Richenel, apparently from the bottom of a very deep well) to Talking Heads’ “Drugs” (with a fiery, soulful vocal by Alison Limerick over a harsh, thumping rhythm track) and Colin Newman’s “Alone,” each of them reinterpreted in the unique This Mortal Coil style. Less focused than It’ll End in Tears, Filigree & Shadow is an uneven but often inspired follow-up.





Tracklist:
01 - Velvet Belly.flac
02 - The Jeweller.flac
03 - Ivy and Neet.flac
04 - Meniscus.flac
05 - Tears.flac
06 - Tarantula.flac
07 - My Father.flac
08 - Come Here My Love.flac
09 - At First, and Then.flac
10 - Strength of Strings.flac
11 - Morning Glory.flac
12 - Inch-Blue.flac
13 - I Want to Live.flac
14 - Mama K (1).flac
15 - Filigree & Shadow.flac
16 - Firebrothers.flac
17 - Thaïs (1).flac
18 - I Must Have Been Blind.flac
19 - A Heart of Glass.flac
20 - Alone.flac
21 - Mama K (2).flac
22 - The Horizon Bleeds and Sucks Its Thumb.flac
23 - Drugs.flac
24 - Red Rain.flac
25 - Thaïs (2).flac

Summary:
Country: UK
Genre: dream-pop


Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~ 850-1000 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits