Underrated Roddy Frame celebrates three decades with overdue appraisal of major-label catalogue
High Land, Hard Rain - 9/10
At first listen, this beguiling set of songs from one of Scotland's most-revered, yet under-selling singers, is what it is - very good. Then you learn that the whole thing was written by the then-teenage Roddy Frame and you start to realize what a talent the man was (and still is, decades later). Just listen to Pillar to Post, Oblivious and Walk Out to Winter - Frame was years ahead of the game back in 1983 when this album appeared. Sadly, this reissue doesn't include the two Postcard singles, Just Like Gold and Mattress of Wire, but does round up numerous b-sides, such as the terrific Orchid Girl and Set the Killing Free, as well as 12" mixes of Oblivious and Walk Out to Winter. And if you don't feel a pang of emotion when checking out Down the Dip or We Could Send Letters, you are clinically dead.
Knife - 7/10
After the considerable success of the band's debut-album, their label (WEA) plumped for a big-name producer in Mark Knopfler, which sort of turned Knife into an expansive melodramatic set with mixed results. Sure, you get two decent singles in the shape of All I Need Is Everything and Still on Fire, plus the passionate and rousing The Birth of the True and easy-going Head is Happy (Heart's Insane), but the album lacked the verve and vigour previously found on the debut. Frame had grown up fast. But, despite sounding smoother and having far longer songs, Frame remained in pop's spotlight with Knife and, overall, it's a worthy addition if only for the chilled-out nonplussed delivery of one of the extras on here. Frame's lackadaisical version of Van Halen's gloriously preposterous posturing rawk-anthem Jump is an earworm to behold.
Love - 8/10
The breakthrough album and Aztec Camera's biggest-selling album to date. Issued in 1987, the all-encompassing blue-eyed soul-pop sound was aimed fairly and squarely at the mainstream - how could any member of the public forget that album-title, for a start? The eventual stardom took its time though - opening singles Deep and Wide and Tall (great choice - flopped) and How Men Are (super song, not really a single but reached #25 somehow) were merely paving the way for the outrageously over the top Somewhere In My Heart's Top 3 placing, Frame's biggest hit by a mile. After that jewel of a song, to prove how crap WEA were at picking singles, they plumped for Working in a Goldmine as the all-important follow-up - it stiffed outside the Top 30 and the impetus was gone. However, as well as the singles, the essential Killermont Street lurks at the end of the album, possibly one of Frame's finest three-minute ballads. With this double-disc edition, you get a veritable spread of remixes, b-sides and a sax-packed soulful instrumental reading of Working in a Goldmine. I still really like this album very much.
Stray - 6/10
Perhaps Frame's only lapse in creativity when it came to turning pop tricks. Stray is a strange collection - there aren't many stand-out songs on here, despite the presence of Good Morning Britain, his last Top 20 hit. Featuring The Clash/B.A.D. guru Mick Jones, GMB paired these unlikely allies up for a Top of the Pops-bothering radio-friendly song that soundtracked thousands of breakfasts up and down the land. Other winners include first single The Crying Scene, the title track and the closing Song for a Friend. Of much more interest on this 2-CD reissue are the extras on the second disc. Skip past the pointless bombastic remixes of the aforementioned GMB hit and head to Frame's duet with old mate Edwyn Collins on the Orange Juice song, Consolation Prize and his cover of True Colors (spelt with a U).
Dreamland - 8/10
After the relatively hit-and-miss vagaries of Stray, Aztec Camera's fifth reasonably successful album is a far more straight-forward proposition of softer tones and grown-up pop. Produced by legendary arranger, composer and producer Ryuichi Sakamoto, Dreamland is packed with sleepy soulful vignettes, including the fabulous opener Birds, which was a flop as a single but is undeniably sumptuous all the same, the more typical rousing Dream Sweet Dreams and the Catalonian-esque Spanish Horses. You couldn't blame his label for trying different angles when it came to plugging the album to radio, but the simplest efforts such as Sister Ann and Black Lucia may have served his fortunes better. The extra disc is a must - it groups all of the singles' live b-side recordings from a Ronnie Scott's concert together for the first time, as well as a kitsch reading of Andy Fairweather-Low's If Paradise Was Twice as Nice - the original singer lends a subtle melancholy to the duet, only previously available on an NME tape.
Frestonia - 9/10
Aztec Camera's fall from grace and label priority is never more obvious than with the sixth and final Warner's album, Frestonia. Seemingly free of studio-trickery and named after a West London neighbourhood, the craftsmanship undertaken on this really fine album has rarely been tapped into, until now perhaps. Harking back to his creative peaks heard on High Land, Hard Rain and Love, Frestonia contains so many excellent songs, it's difficult and churlish to pick a few highlights. It was discarded from the release schedules and sold into music stores with little fanfare - I remember the Warner rep coming into my Our Price branch and dumping five of these on the counter and simply walking off, uttering the informative words, "you'll probably hand this pile back to me next week, it's so shoddy". I didn't - I played it in the store and sold all five. And therein lies the problem with an artist out of favour - Frame was neither Radio 1 or Radio 2 fodder anymore, he was at a crossroads of local-radio doldrums rather than the mainstream. Songs like flop single Sun (and the slower alternative Sunset), the punchy Phenomenal World, the elegaic Beautiful World and another peachy Frame ballad, On the Avenue, would have been huge hits some ten years previous - in 1995, no-one gave a solitary one. A shame. Extras are four live tracks from the Sun cd-single formats and are mere expanded-edition fodder, good though they are - the main attraction is definitely the album itself. Sure, Debutante and Rainy Season are lengthy beasts, but these beasts contain beauty and if you liked Frame's super solo albums, The North Star and Surf, you'll get on with these and the other eight songs.
For information on Roddy Frame's live shows, head to Allgigs here
High Land, Hard Rain - 9/10
Knife - 7/10
Love - 8/10
Stray - 6/10
Dreamland - 8/10
Frestonia - 9/10
For information on Roddy Frame's live shows, head to Allgigs here