The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 41

16 1 Music The Guardian Friday Match mn popcb RELEASES Excellent Good "returned to their Krautrock origins'' and that therefore this album sounds like Empires And Dance or New Gold Dream. Critics have dutifully copied this bit out in their reviews, but in fact Neapolis sounds like clumsy mid-Atlantic rock with ki few sequencers lobbed into the mix. The Simps were indeed innovators dance electro-ambient stuff, but that was almost 2(t years ago Putting the genie back in the bottle has not been possible, so you yet plonking songs like Lightning orGlitterhall that are like lumps ot concreti' in sound, while. Jim Kerr's lyrics sound as though thev re being sung backwards. Nice to see Dan Forbes back on bass, though.

(AS; Michael Stipe to have sung on the folkish Almond Kisses. TS) Blur Rustin' Dronin' (I'oodi Some groups just weren't meant to be remixed. This limited-edition double CD as intended for the Japanese market only and there it should have stayed, with its "radical" rakes on seven songs from the Blur. Hardly a particle of Bi-etlebum or Essex Dogs survives after remixers Moby and Thurston Moore ha bad their feecibneky, Hooverish way. and what's the point of three versions of Death Of A Party "The second disc is more attractive, consisting of stuff recorded live at IVel house last year.

ICS) Mediocre Appalling Motorhaad Snakebite Love (SI'V) Shania Twain Come On Over (Merc ur Eric Clapton Pilgrim (Reprise) Motorhead are suddenly, inexplicably coo! but then' are goixl reasons to stay clear. Basically, singer bassist Lemmy sounds like an old boot hilarious lor Five minutes (tew others could have imbued the opening lines 'lx)okm' good Steppin'out Ijookm' for love" ivith such wheezy vvistfulness). but very tiresome thereafter. The characteristically murky sound quality doesn't advance their cause, either. But the contemplative Dead And.Gone is unexpectedly moi-eish, and only a misanthrope could hate Don't Lie To Me's lollicking sixties feel.

It's just the other nine songs (CS) Fans of the fiery Eric ot lJerek The Dotninos. or even of the niellow-but-soulful Eric of 4(il Ocean Boulevard, may find themselves at a loss to describe his new album. It isn't blues, and it isn't roi-k. If anything it's minimalist New Age music, where all emotions are replayed in slow motion. Some times it works.

Circus is con structed from intricate acoustic guitars over a bashful beat, and River Of Tears is an agonising lament on which Clapton's singing is ranged with anguish. If only there were more like it. Then again, it would be unbearable. (AS) Simple Minds Neapolis (Chrysalis) Shania Twam'sdohut album sold umpteen squillion copies under its "country" camouflage, hut lu-time she wants to convince listen ers that she can play apid A( )R with the test of them. The opener, the gently unrolling You're Still tin One.

is rather nice, but after that it's an interminable sequence ot hackneyed rockers or songs that resemble unsuccessful attempts to write the big weepie for the Titanic soundtrack. The efforts at rock'n'roll, like the excruciating Rock This Country! sound I ike Jefferson Starship outtakes. Shania and producer, husband' co-writer Mutt Iange have tried to cash in on Nashville's "strong women" boom with the gormless Black Eyes, Blue Tears, but this only makes the finished product sound even more cynically designed and manufactured. (AS) Reviews by Caroline Sullivan and Adam Sweeting Spacehog The Chinese Album (Sire) So popular in America (a million-selling debut album) that they've moved there, this Leds foursome are either refreshingly versatile or annoyingly inconsistent. They turn their hands to orchestral pomp, grumbly rock and camp vaudeville, the only common factor being the gurgly voice of Royston Langdon.

It pleasant fare that will appeal to fans of those other Northern wacky boys, Space. They're taken seriously enough in the States for The Chrysalis press release tries to suggest that Simple Minds have Elliott Carter Andrew Clements on 100 years of music Soundingthe century 14: Elliott Carter (bom 1908) Of all the praise that has been heaped upon Elliott Carter over the last 50 years, one comment stands out It was Igor Stravinsky, no less, who described Carter's Double Concerto for piano and harpsichord, completed in 1961, as "a masterpiece, and by an American For Carter especially, who began his career as a Stravinskian neoclassicist studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, it must have seemed the ultimate accolade, for he used that grounding as the starting point for a style that in the years after the second world war he made his own. Carter's position as one of the century's greats is now indisputable and rests upon those post-war works, beginning with the Cello Sonata of 1948. Until the 1970s that was a small and precious collection three string quartets, two sonatas, three concertos, and a set of orchestral variations. But in his immensely fertile old age Carter's rate of production has speeded up; the compositional challenges that he used to set himself in every work have all been met, the technique is settled and the craftmanship immensely assured.

Beginning with the Symphony Of Three Orchestras of 1976, the Triple Duo and Penthode, there has been a joyous stream of works including two more quartets, concertos for violin, oboe and clarinet, and a huge orchestral triptych, Symphonia, completed last year. With the Elizabeth Bishop settings of A Mirror On Which To Dwell (1974) and the complex and allusive Syringa (1978), he returned to writing for the voice, and now, in his 90th year, he is composing his first opera. It has been a remarkable achievement by an American as indebted to the example of Charles Ives as he was to the European models, but who has always seen his work as part of a much larger tradition. If his music has seemed at times iconoclastic, then that has been a necessary part of the process of self-discovery. Carter has said that his First String Quartet was written "largely for my own satisfaction, and grew out of an effort to understand myself" and that, in the 20th century, is an admirable ideal.

Carter on CD (Not? 3 numbrr ol arm's fines! works, notably ine DouM ContprlDanrJ Syrinird. tte nor tMsily availebtr Worts fcxSWnf Quart Vob I til Ariiitti QuirW lllirlemKK 106-. 1066J (ovotfnbfp ConctftoFor OtthMtraiVMIn OcuHani London SinfonretlaKnussen Vtrgin Vt 791SO Mum Concaitn Vartattomtar Orthwtra Opppnv Ciixinani Symphony, 'fin-ten Carter In the Concert Hall A Symphony 01 Thiee 0bf slias, Baibttan. Ma'th 22 IHw Knusprt ondu(ts the firsl cornplplf perfofmdfM of Jiln's Symphonic, ridge witrr Hall. Manchester, April j6 Sounding the Century Lectures With Walter Modify Steirwr (Mah m) and Richard Dawkins (March 38) on Radio Selected by THE CLASSIC DEBUT ALBUM "SUICIDE" OUT NOW 2CD 2LP LIMITED EDITIONS INCLUDE BONUS ALBUM FEATURING "LIVE AT CBQBS 1978" AND "23 MINUTES OVER BRUSSELS" Andrew Clements In association with Sounding the Century BBC Radio 3 's nationnride broadcast festival of 20th-century music RADIO 3 90-93m.