Track Listing

1. Primitive Painters
2. Day The Rain Came Down
3. My Darkest Light Will Shine
4. Textile Ranch
5. Sunlight Bathed The Golden Glow
6. Crystal Ball
7. Dismantled King Is Off The Throne
8. Fortune
9. Dance Of Deliverance
10. Stagnant Pool
11. Red Indians
12. World Is As Soft As Lace
13. Penelope Tree
14. Trails Of Colour Dissolve
15. Evergreen Dazed
16. Templeroy
17. Something Sends Me To Sleep
18. Index

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5033 in Music
• Released on: 2000-05-08
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

CD Description
Enigmatic singer Lawrence helmed Felt throughout the 1980s,creating a soft brand of indie-rock that has proved highly influential. This compilation album gathers some of their best material.

Customer Reviews

A season in Heaven
Both the choice of tracks and playing order is inspired. Felt's beauty is difficult to rival, and they were at their most beautiful in the beginning. Fortune and Stagnant Pool provide a glimpse of that early brilliance as you travel backwards to the sublime simplicity that characterises Felt at the point of conception. The cd is a sensitive memorial and fitting epitaph to a band whose music was so influential but never surpassed.

Patchy, occasionaly repetitive, yet usually brilliant
As an introduction to 80's post-punkers Felt (home to Duffy from Primal Scream at one point) this is excellent. A fair amount of sifting is required, certainly initially, but patience is rewarded by some outstanding tracks, most notably the 5-minute guitar piece 'Evergreen Dazed'. It covers the five years that the band were on Cherry Red label, from early, deleted single 'Index', former Melody Maker Single Of The Week and breakthrough track'Something Sends me to Sleep', through a selection of tracks from 5 Cherry Red albums and singles, to their hit E.P., and last work on Cherry Red Records, Primitive Painters with Liz Frasier of the Cocteau's on vocals. Felt have a sound that is admittedly quite common to many of their post-punk peers (along with the ubiquitous Velvet Undergound comparisons), though they undoubtedly have a strong sense of individuality (mainly through vocalist Lawrence) that comes through clearly in the music. Most of the work here does bear an imprint of those that influenced it - Velvets, Television etc. Yet Felt have had an impact on a great deal of 90's 'alternative' guitar music, too. Fans of bands such as Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine and Mogwai will already be no stranger to this type of music. This isn't a coherent album, there are easily discernable 'phases' throughout the album, though the real gems, and there are quite a few, make it a worthwhile purchase.

The best introduction to Felt...
Rating: 9.5/10

Best tracks: "Fortune", "Dismantled King is Off the Throne", "Penelope Tree", "The Day the Rain Came Down".

Absolute Classic Masterpieces covers Felt's years at Cherry Red Records (excluding their brief return in 1989 for their last album, Me and a Monkey on the Moon); covered here is the era encompassing the first four albums -Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty, The Splendour of Fear, The Strange Idols Pattern & Other Short Stories and Ignite the Seven Cannons - and the best of the singles and the B-sides from this period; in other words, the Maurice Deebank years. Starting with their semi-hit `Primitive Painters' and working backwards, this is a mostly perfect selection of the best songs from Felt's early years - okay, one might quibble at the absence of `I Don't Know Which Way to Turn' (which should definitely have taken the place of the good but not great `Textile Ranch') and the stunning `Spanish House'(the 3rd best Felt song; read on for the 2nd and the best...), but overall this is too good to bother starting with debates about track selection. The first four songs are taken from the Robin Guthrie-produced Ignite the Seven Cannons - `Primitive Painters' is a stunning, atmospheric treat, while the dreamy `My Darkest Light Will Shine' and especially the thrilling `The Day the Rain Came Down' are wonderful, guitar and keyboard-laden slices of heavenly indie-pop.

The Strange Idols and Other Short Patterns is a fantastic album (Felt's best) from start to finish, so you have to admire Cherry Red for resisting the opportunity to select the whole album as a highlight - I'm just glad they chose `Dismantled King is Off the Throne', which is probably the apex of Felt's melodic jangle-pop sound (this is the 2nd best Felt song); every second of this song is a delight. `Crystal Ball' and `Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow' from the same album do more than keep the strong momentum going, yet the album skyrockets even higher with `Fortune', which is the smoothest, most seductive thing they ever recorded. This is actually a reworking of a song from their first album. While that version was excellent, this is stronger in every inconceivable way, featuring Deebank's most beautiful guitar work and Lawrence's most haunting vocals. This is the very best Felt song, evocative of sultry summer evenings and dreamy sunsets, exuding a truly sexy, luscious atmosphere. And to think it was only a B-side! It's better than almost anything else I've ever heard in modern music....it's a song to fall in love to, and with.

A one-off comes next in the form of `Dance of Deliverance', which isn't actually a Felt track as such, being as it's taken from Deebank's solo album from that time (The Inner Thought Zone), which takes the languid guitar mood of `Fortune' to epic lengths. After this we're in the Splendour of Fear (which is a great, great album, well worth getting) era, dominated by Deebanks's most iconic moment - `The Stagnant Pool', a well-deserved fan favourite and a powerfully moody near-instrumental. `Red Indians' is a very good interlude before the beautiful `The World is Soft as Lace', which has a truly delightful guitar hook and some of the dreamiest Felt moments you'll ever hear. Check out the rest of the album for the wonderful "Mexican Bandits" and the haunting " A Preacher in New England" too!

The driving `Penelope Tree' is a total joy and a certifiable Felt masterpiece; I could listen to this one all day - it has a stunning chorus, a killer verse, brilliant lyrics, great vocals, great EVERYTHING! Let's say this is the 4th best Felt song, and one of the greatest lost singles of all time. "Trails of Colour Dissolve" is very good too and has some great guitars throughout! The mostly instrumental first album Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty is nicely represented by the lovely "Evergreen Dazed" and the moody "Templeroy", both very fine pieces to behold, though they work better in the context of the album they came from.

I love early single `Something Sends Me to Sleep', it has a lazy, drifting, sexy feel from start to finish and proved that the band were something special right near the start. I say right near the start, because the closing track here is the very first Lawrence track; `Index' is a total mess and not very good, but who cares? It was Lawrence's first single and it's nice to have it here just to hear how it all began. Felt are one of the greatest bands ever, and this is one of the greatest compilations ever. This period in particular had an irresistible charge, dominated by Deebank and Lawrence's winning chemistry. This is the best introduction to Felt, even though it only tells half the story; Deebank was yet to leave and Martin Duffy was yet to take his place as Lawrence's new creative partner; still, it has the most great Felt songs of any of their CDs, so get it now and experience one of the finest bands ever!