Waterloo Region Record du lieu suivant : Kitchener, Ontario, Canada • 30

C6 Kitchener Waterloo Record Thurs Oct 31 1985 SOUNDS By Jason Mitchell i 2 2 3 4 outside world (a sort of rock and roll version of Jerzy Chance the Gardener) Power Windows deals with the causes of tension inherent in modem day living: the threat of nuclear war the lack of global planning the im personality of technology the lack of conscience of those with power and money themes lyri cist Neil Peart has dealt with be fore and while his sentiments are admirable never really able to breathe much life into them merous time and direction changes that were the signature of LPs like 2112 and Hemispheres And with the shortest song over five minutes there an obvi ous single If you're a fan that probably means Power Windows has just about everything that makes a Rush album technical ly accomplished playing out of the ordinary song structures and a thinking lyrics But if not a fan find little here that these hard rock hosers bashed screeched or squawked before As reflected in Hugh Alex Colville style cover of a young man surrounded by TVs pointing a remote controller at the What can you say about a veter an band that with each new re lease is basically tinkering with a formula they got comfortable with eight years ago? Power Windows the latest al bum by Rush finds the trio delving more heavily into syn thesizers and experimenting with choirs and string sections but ba sically this is just a variation on the grandiose progressive rock epics been purveying since the mid 70s In many ways a step back ward from the last couple of records in that the songs are char acterized by busy playing and nu SINGLES (2) Money or Nothing Dire Straits (1) Part Time Lover Stevie Wonder (3) Cherish Kool and the Gang (4) Lonely 01' Night John Cougar Mellencamn 5 (9) Dancing in the Street Bowie Jagger 6 (6) Oh Sheila Ready or The World 7 (7) St ire (Man in Motion) John Parr 8 (5) Dress You Up Madonna 9 (8) There Must Be an Angel Eurythmics 10 Miami Vice Theme Jan Hammer Tinkering Rush fails to improve its distinctive sound Top of the charts weekly pop music charts are based on Canada wide sales figures The figures are compiled by the music industry trade source The Record Bracketed figures indicate position last week ALBUMS (1) Brothers in Arms Dire Straits (2) Scarecrow John Cougar Mellencamp 3 (6) Miami Vice Soundtrack 4 (4) Alien Shores PlatinumBlonde 5 (3) Reckless Bryan Adams 6 (7) In Square Circle Stevie Wonder 7 (5) Boy in the Box Corey Hart 8 (8) No Jacket Required Phil Collins 9 Born in the USA Bruce Springsteen 10 (10) Hunting High and Low A Ha Jnii I 4 2s LN I Kate voice an exotic delight Always an acquired taste her first album in three years presents her at both her most accessible and most experimental and if that sounds contradictory well Kate Bush The first side is a good introduc tion for the uninitiated five songs carried by tom heavy tribal drum sounds and airlight synthesizer washes and delightfully sunny trilling The second side entitled The Ninth Wave is a conceptual song cycle about someone near drown ing and is Bush at her most bi zarre Bells and whistles Irish jigs and oriental rhythms disjoint ed voices and weird chants all go into a musical blender to produce a sort of Alice in Wonderland on acid But her voice a small pleasure to just listen to the way she breathes is the cement that holds it all together making this challenging LP an exotic delight Dexys Midnight suvives inspite of itself Dexys Midnight Runners Stand Me Down: Eschewing the conventional song structures of Too Rye Ay Kevin Rowland is back with a fascinating new style an almost completely new band and a natty new set of clothes Punctuated by and interspersed with bits of dialogue this six songs (totalling over 46 min utes) have an ebb and flow not un like an intimate late night conver sation Buoyed by Vincent bouncing piano and Helen versatile violin some times the music rocks (Listen To This) and sometimes it meanders (The Occasional licker) but rarely is it uninteresting and the talk between Roland and guitarist Billy Adams adds a curious feeling of spontaneity As usual Rowland directs his misanthropic ranting at bad radio bad politics wealthy peas and the and igno English upper classes among other things finally com ing down on the side of personal roots and true love Though some times both nasty and pretentious as Rowland is inclined to be this record succeeds almost in spite of itself Texas university plans tribute to legendary jazzman Stan Kenton DENTON Tex (Reuter) A handful of arrangements by Stan Kenton are to be recorded later this year for the first time since the legendary death in 1979 The recording tribute to the gift ed bandleader who helped develop the popular smooth and brassy big band sound of the 1940s and '50s is planned by his musical and legal heirs at North Texas State Univer sity The small Texas school and its famed student showpiece the One Lab Band owe much of their jazz legacy to Kenton After years of close association with the college's internationally acclaimed jazz program includ ing frequent trips to Texas to re cruit young musicians for his 19 piece orchestra Kenton willed his entire collection of about 2000 compositions and arrangements to the One Lab Band heard the band play in the early 1960s and just freaked says Neil Slater band director and head of North Texas jazz studies program always said that when he died he want to have any ghost band with his name still playing his Slater said in an interview To show its appreciation and to keep the true Kenton arrange ments alive the One Lab Band plans to record an album some of things from the 1950s and later this year Slater said In 1947 when jazz was evolving in smoky clubs as the daring new sound of North American music North Texas State plunged ahead and became the first US college to offer a danceband degree By the 1970s the One Lab Band so named for the time of day its student mem bers practised had won interna tional recognition No laughing matter Eddie Murphy takes himself too seriously By Lawson There's nothing funny about Ed die new album nor is there supposed to be In an ill conceived attempt to round out his talents the comedian actor poses as pop sing er on How Could It Be (Columbia) with only lukewarm results The arrangements are big and busy giving a misleading credibil ity to the whole affair but even the full scale production enough to cover up the inadequa cies of thin stab at funk and and With the more accept able moments he leans heavily on the proven talents of Stevie Won der and Rick James both of whom make limited contributions in songwriting production and backup Similarly the title ballad becomes palatable primarily through the co lead vocals of Crys tal Blake But Murphy shows himself to be even less of a songwriter than he is singer Of his compositions four out of eight tracks Confused is the biggest dud though not the only one The cover art depicting Murphy draped over a piano a veritable study in pensiveness should tip you right away to the overall tone The man is taking himself very seriously folks and for a comedian serious busi ness indeed The Canadian Press flpl Jk Pensive Eddie Murphy on the cover of his LP Could It Be.