Bish Bosch
Scott Walker claims that *Bish Bosh* is the final installment of a trilogy that started with 1995\'s *Tilt* and continued with 2006\'s *The Drift*. The stylistic similarities are readily apparent in the extreme musical dynamics, with vocals that sound like an opera singer being strangled in the back of a theater and a sense that the world might end at any moment. This is ghost music, enlivened by thoroughly unconventional song structures and skewered arrangements that the average pop music fan might find unnerving, confusing, and (likely) hostile. But for listeners acclimated to Walker\'s extreme levels of tension, the music here is as refreshingly unusual as ever, with lyrics that wander all over the cultural map. Due to the sizable length of several cuts (the excellent \"Corps De Blah,\" the mind-melting \"SDSS14+13B (Zercon, a Flagpole Sitter),\" \"Epizootics!,\" and \"The Day the \'Conducator\' Died (An Xmas Song),\" the album has the feel of being one long piece. Brief intermissions are found with the intro (\"\'See You Don\'t Bump His Head\'\"), \"Phrasing,\" and the less-than-three-minutes \"Pilgrim.\"
Scott Walker's third album in the last 17 years features drums and guitars and other passing references to rock music, but its deepest roots are in the dissonant, turn-of-the century compositions by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg.
A darkly comic album: the sound of a man confronting the horrors of the world, seeming overwhelmed by them, but using their inherent absurdities as his muse.
In a peerless career that now spans seven decades, including shape-shifting turns from '50s teen idol to '60s singer…
Bish Bosch is, according to Scott Walker, the final recording in the trilogy that began with 1995’s Tilt and continued in 2006’s The Drift.
Many felt that Scott Walker's curious investigation into the outer limits of contemporary songcraft had reached its ultimate culmination with his harrowing 2006 LP, The Drift, and to some extent Bish Bosch does feel like it resides in the shadow of that record. Again Walker's reference-heavy lyrics serve as the fulcrum as musical phrases lurch and splutter forward before dissolving back into an opulent ground of inky silence.
Scott Walker albums are like reading James Joyce's Ulysses. It's impossible to digest in only one sitting and can even drive you mad with its labyrinthine web of allusions during a second, fifth, or tenth pass.
Steeped in austere arrangments and arcane references, Scott Walker's latest is the perfect antidote for Christmas cheer, writes <strong>Kitty Empire</strong>
Bish Bosch is the work of a committed artist delving further into a land of vaguely sketched nightmares.
Bish Bosch stands in stark contrast with the music that made Scott Walker a household name back in the 1960s, it is progressive, honest and inventive.
<p>Were you hoping this might be the album that would see Scott Walker return to lush, beautiful balladry? Well, tough, writes <strong>Alexis Petridis</strong></p>
Scott Walker - Bish Bosch review: A Ted Chippington-esque album; a kind of humour that challenges you to not find it funny.
Dictators, 15th century Dutch artists, dentist's-drill percussion and inscrutability on the new album from the former Sixites icon. CD review by Kieron Tyler