The Glove: Blue Sunshine (Deluxe Edition) - Disc 1 of 2 CD Track Listing

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The Glove Blue Sunshine (Deluxe Edition) - Disc 1 of 2 (1983)
Blue Sunshine (Deluxe Edition) - Disc 1 of 2\n2006 Rhino Entertainment Company\n\nOriginally Released September 9, 1983\nCD Edition Released September 12, 1990 (Rough Trade)\nDeluxe 2CD Edition Released August 8, 2006\nRemastered 1CD Edition Released N/A\n\nAmazon.com Product Description (Original CD Release)\nOut of print in the U.S., this is Polydor's 1990 reissue of the 1983 side-project album by The Cure's Robert Smith and Siouxsie & The Banshees' Steve Severin. Contains 13 tracks, including all three of the bonus tracks that were on the U.S. edition: 'Mouth To Mouth', 'The Tightrope' and 'Like AnAnimal' (Club? What Club?). \n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: (Deluxe Edition) This one-off collaboration between the Cure's Robert Smith and Siouxsie and the Banshees' Steve Severin resulted in an eccentric, and at times incompatible, mix of psychedelic sounds wrapped around alternative '80s pop. Writers Smith and Severin's more eccentric tendencies are as likely to evoke pictures of a carnival as a funereal march, but the backbone rests largely on tightly constructed tunes with occasional forays into the experimental. Jeanette Landray sings the majority of the tracks, while Smith takes the lead twice among a smattering of instrumentals. Standout tracks include the Middle Eastern-twinged "Orgy" and the more conventional "Mouth to Mouth." Smith's distinctive warbling on the first-class "Perfect Murder" takes the album directly into Cure territory, as do the instrumentals that could equally find a home on Seventeen Seconds. While musically diverse, the album's lyrics rarely stray from the dual themes of death and sex, furthering the gothic undertones so often heard in Smith's and Severin's previous work. Blue Sunshine's eclecticism makes this an interesting side note for longtime fans of the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but a somewhat more inaccessible listen for others. [The 2006 reissue contains a bonus disc of remixes, alternate mixes, and demos that more than double the original running length of the album and present a definitive and complete look at the group's short history.] -- Brendan Swift\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nStrange Music, September 30, 2006\nReviewer: Loverboy (California!)\nOK...This is my favorite album of all time. There is nothing like it. NOTHING!!! I think Robert Smith is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Steve Severin is also great, of course. I have every album from the Cure and Siouxsie & the Banshees...BUT...this is still my favorite. Acid had a good effect on these two. Extreme psychedelia at it's finest. I love 60s psychedelia, too.. but this is better. I listen to it every day. So original with excellent sounds! When i first heard the female vocals on this album, i was disappointed because it wasn't Robert Smith, but they grew on me. I would have liked to hear Robert's 80s voice on these tracks. That would be a 10. He sounds a little worn out these days. I like the extra instrumental tracks on the 2nd CD. I always wished they were tracks of their own, and now i have them. The new RS vocals suck, but I'm elated with the improved main CD. I have to give it 5 stars because it's so good!!! If you want to enter a new dimension, listen to this. If you only like standard pop sounds, forget it.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nNot as Fun as It Appears to Be, August 24, 2006\nReviewer: Thomas D. Ryan "American Hit Network" (New York)\nThe Glove is actually a mock-up band consisting of The Cure's Robert Smith and Steven Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees, with help from a female vocalist named Jeanette Landray. The band name is lifted from the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine," which featured a blue glove as the 'muscle' for the Blue Meanies. They also borrow some artwork from the Beatles project, and take more than a little inspiration from the psychedelia of this project, with a natural tendency toward the "Blue" (read 'dark') side of the equation. The original album was released back in 1983, so it is understandable why numerous fans of the Cure or the Banshees may be unfamiliar with the existence of this project. Now that is re-released as a 2-disk deluxe package, that may change, although I don't think they were missing much. \nAs side projects go, "Blue Sunshine" is reasonably interesting and a bit fun, especially when compared to the gloomy dirges of each member's 'day' gigs, but it is hardly a ray of 'blue sunshine'. Severin and Smith wanted to create something distinctly different from their usual fare, but their success rate is nominal at best. The difference lies in their approach to creating the music more than it does in the overall sound. The arrangements make the difference, featuring a semi-psychedelic approach to song structure that is simply too whimsical for either of those bands. Sitars, dulcimers, electric marimbas, and a traditional Japanese instrument called a Koto weave in and out of the recording, giving the project an unusual sound, but not enough to retain the listener's interest. That would require memorable songwriting, and "Blue Sunshine" just isn't up to snuff. Despite the aural hjinks, none of the songs here are particularly memorable. Psychedelic stylings cannot compensate for mediocre songwriting and uneven production (although Pink Floyd did get away with it for years...), which may explain why this release languished in obscurity as long as it did. More than anything else, "Blue Sunshine" resembles a bad Annie Lennox album (something that Lennox herself has never done), with Robert Smith providing a guest warble or two. \nLyrically, the subject matter stays pretty close to the Banshees and the Cure's penchant for the dark, dismal, and dolorous, and it hardly makes a difference who handles the lyrics. On "Orgy," the Severin-penned lyrics state that "A disease is under my fingernails, it stains me like a tattoo," while the Smith-penned "Like an Animal" goes on about a "Tuesday in the sun, nothing could be worse. Not now, not ever not anymore..." Oh, there is psychedelic imagery to colorize things a bit, but the grainy, dull black-and-white songwriting never coalesces into anything memorable. "Blue Sunshine" may be occasionally interesting but it is peripheral at best. It is also ultimately (and utterly) forgettable. C Tom Ryan\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nBetter than nothing, August 17, 2006\nReviewer: lostflower4 (USA)\nOk, it's obvious that the vocals on the second disc were recorded in the last couple of years. But I have a theory on this. These are, for the most part, less polished demo versions than what appears on disc one. Perhaps vocals were not originally present on these recordings, so Robert had two choices: 1) release them as-is, or 2) add vocals to them. \n\nI wouldn't be surprised if the original multitrack masters of the final versions are long lost, so there might not have been much choice here. Robert could have recorded vocals along with the original Jeanette Landray versions to make a duet (eeek), or he could go solo on the demos as he did. \n\nI'm sure most of us wanted to hear what this album would have sounded with Robert on all the songs... Well, this is the closest thing. Sure, it's missing the great guitar solos as well as some other elements. But overall I think disc two is much more truly psychedelic than the original -- because of both the musical style itself and Robert on vocals. \n\nMaybe I'm wrong and there were original Robert vocals. If this is true, then it's a pity. But in the end, it's an interesting listen. We should just be happy that Robert decided to give us something new to listen to.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nThe Smith/Severin pyschedelic experiment., August 16, 2006\nReviewer: Michael Stack (Watertown, MA USA)\nIn the early 1980s, the Cure's Robert Smith was pulling double duty as guitarist with Siouxsie and the Banshees. In 1983, he and Banshees bassist Steve Severin, both fans of '60s psychedelia, took their stab at it with a project titled The Glove. At the 11th hour, Fiction Records prevented Smith's vocals from being used, and instead a vocalist named Landray (who was at the time dating Banshees drummer Budgie) handled the vocal duties. The resulting album, "Blue Sunshine", is a bit of a mixed bag. Some folks love it, I find it to be seriously lacking. AT thet least, this reissue, which collects the entire album, b-sides from its singles, and adds a disc of some additional demos and pieces with evidentally rerecorded vocals (though its stated as a demo) by Smith, sounds fantastic with its new remastered sound. \n\nBut again, the album itself-- the music tends to be mildly interesting oddball psychedelia, some of its interesting enough ("Like an Animal" features a ringing bass, churning acoustic guitars and walls of synths, "The Green City" has layers of guitars creating quite a swirling atmosphere), but largely it tends to either be a bit uninspired (scratching violins on "Orgy") or mangled by Landray's vocals (the otherwise lovely "Punish Me With Kisses", frantic "Sex-Eye-Make-Up"). Remarkably, the rerecorded (or demo?) vocals by Smith feel completely out of place, leading me to agree that these are not the original recordings. In the end, the material is ok, but it's not anything to get excited about, and for an album recorded immediately after "Pornography", it lacks that record's intrigue. \n\nInvariably, nothing I say or don't say will change anyone buying this one, but "Blue Sunshine", even with Smith's vocals, is far from the great, lost Cure album it's sometimes touted as.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nRobert *did* in fact re-record vocals on disc 2, August 12, 2006\nReviewer: Abhi Taranath\nI just read the review on The Glove's "Blue Sunshine" supposedly correcting Gary's statements that Robert re-recorded new vocals on the bonus disc of Blue Sunshine. \n\nIt doesn't mention it in the liner notes, but if you listen to Robert's voice on the second disc, you will realize that he re-recorded the vocals... it's his modern-day voice (around 1996-present).... any true Cure fan has already figured this out. This re-release is less than a week old, so you'll start to hear reports about this soon enough. There's nothing wrong with Robert re-recording the vocals, but he undoubtedly did, and to a small extent it's misleading in that it's making Cure fans believe that this is the "lost Cure album from 1983". \n\nDemos can be rough and unfinished... in this case they are and honestly that's fine and charming... but Robert's vocals on the second disc are all brand new. He clearly sounds much older on the second disc than his 24-year-old self on the first disc. \n\nAlso, the recording quality of his voice is vastly superior on the second disc than it is on the two tracks he sings on the original album. This is not the "lost" Cure album Robert and Rhino Records advertising have made it out to be. \n\nBottom line is: if you enjoyed the Glove's one and only album back in 1983, then this re-release (original album on Disc 1) sounds amazing. The artwork is on par with all of the other Rhino reissues of late (Cure and Depeche Mode included). \n\nHowever, if you are going into this thinking that Robert recorded guide vocals for Jeanette Landry in 1983, and released it on this set, then you may be disappointed.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nCAVEAT EMPTOR: bonus disc is *not* original material, August 10, 2006\nReviewer: Gary Swearengin "Embarrassed cure scholar" (This green city...) \nFirst of all, I am a rabid cure fan. I've been looking forward to listening to this bonus disc for months, since I first read about the "RS vocal demo" tracks. I rushed out to buy this and the three new Cure reissues the day it was released. \n\nI rushed home and threw in the bonus disc, expecting to hear unheard gems from 1982/3. Not the case. The "RS vocal demo" tracks on this disc have *clearly* been re-recorded, and are modern Robert Smith, not period pieces. This should be fairly obvious to anyone familiar with the back catalogue, but for comparison, simply listen to the original tracks with Robert Smith vocals to realize how inferior the new versions are. Additionally, the backing tracks have at the very least been re-mixed, as there are many variations from the originals (ex. the piano on "a blues in drag" is now lacking the gorgeous, over-processed delay sound that makes the album version; "this green city" lacks the crazy guitar solo), although not in "demo" form, and not for the better. \n\nSo, I am severely disappointed. In fairness, I have not listened to the remastered album yet (I've been too busy with the bonus discs), but I expect that the quality will be excellent and worth the price of admission. But, I feel like I was mislead. All I've really gleaned from this reissue so far is the knowledge that I would rather not hear Robert Smith re-record modern versions of his older material. As if these bonus tracks and the Blank & Jones version of A Forest were not enough, I could have figured that out on my own... \n\nI'm not saying don't buy this disc, just know what you're getting into...\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nLong lost Cure album! , August 10, 2006\nReviewer: Eugene Sotela "fivershutch@yahoo.com" (PASADENA, CA United States)\nThe bonus disc from this deluxe edition has been within arm's reach of my CD player since purchasing this the other day. Listening to the full album with Robert Smith's vocals is a big treat for any long time Cure fan. It's like listening to an album that should've came out from Cure between Pornography and The Top. Not to say that you don't hear Severin's input but this rings heavily towards the Cure's Top sound. I wasn't even sure if I could listen to "Punish Me With Kisses" with Robert singing after many years used to Landray's vocals.I'm happy to announce that Robert pulls it off. The other little treats we get are the two mixes of "The Man from Nowhere" (nice little instrumental jam that reminds of video game music, minus the moog, like Shinobi or Ninja Gaiden). I predict numerous used copies of the old Glove CD popping up everywhere once word of mouth spreads on this release! PS-"Relax" (vocal mix) doesn't really have Robert singing, just making sounds with his voice. This is cool because I could never imagine this classic instrumental track having vocals.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nOne of my favorite records, August 2, 2006\nReviewer: SRS (Oxford Ohio)\nI was appalled when I first listened to this record. I thought the vocalist was unbearable and the tracks were mediocre. Like many great records, this one took quite some time to appreciate. It's not accessible, but it grows on you. Eventually, it became one of my most frequently played discs. Like an Animal is a pop masterpiece, with a mad/frenetic drum machine beat, a flying keyboard part, Jeanette's weird vocal sound coupled with an acrobatic melody, and Smith's lyrics which can only be described as more bizarre than on any Cure record with the exception of Pornography. Other highlights are Sex-Eye-Make-Up, Mr. Alphabet Says, and Punish Me With Kisses. Frankly, though, I love every song (except the weak b-side The Tightrope). Of the normal album tracks, Orgy is my least-favorite. It's strange that Mouth to Mouth wasn't included on the record, because it's certainly good enough. One reviewer suggested The Head on the Door by The Cure and Hyaena by Siouxsie/Banshees. I like this album better than the former, and just as well as the latter. Hyaena is a great record, though, there's no doubt about it. If I were to purchase a single Cure album, though, I'd pick Seventeen Seconds, which sounds nothing like this record. The closest Cure album to this one is The Top, but the Glove's sound is quite unique. Some may not like the lack of seriousness on this record, but there's a lot of surreal enjoyment to be had.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nDark, Psychedelic, Sensual and Sexy in a Deviant Way, February 19, 2004\nReviewer: SandmanVI (Glen Allen, VA United States)\nBy now you know that The Glove was the side-project of The Cure's Robert Smith and Siouxsie & the Banshees' Steve Severin, with Severin's girlfriend at the time, Jeanette Landray, usually on vocals (Smith sings lead on 2 tracks).\n"A Blues in Drag" is one of the great instrumental in post-punk's history. You could almost call it a tone poem, with its slowly shifting sweeps backed with sparse piano notes, hidden giggles, whispers, gently whining violins and other strings. The effect is beautiful, mesmerizing and deeply sensual.\n\n"Punish Me with Kisses" is a lilting, strange pop song juxtaposing a nice lyrical flow with seemingly opposing images of violence, love and sex; the title should already tell you that much.\n\nSmith sings on the enigmatically sexual "Mr. Alphabet Says", which almost sounds like a freaked out version of the Beatles "Eleanor Rigby" complete with moaning cellos and minor key piano. Lyrics include fun moments of covering, and of course removing, honey and treacle (that's Brit for molasses) from a partner's body. Ends with the hilarious lyric, "Don't be afraid, there's no marmalade."\n\n"Perfect Murder", the other Smith-led number, is a bouncy, swirly (if you'll let me make that word up) track with Robert sounding a lot like the howling, wailing vocalist he did on The Cure album 'The Top'. Reverb-affected synths and noises snake throughout the entire mix.\n\nOne of my favorites is the entrancing "Sex-Eye-Makeup" filled with some of the most lurid lyrics on the subject of self-satisfaction ever heard. "Run around the stairs in your Sunday dress, it's the best thing money can buy. Or leave me on stairs with my feet in the air, I'll think that I'm jazzy like Christ. Someone coughing took away my breath; Inches of glass all shiny and new, screaming, laughing, f@#ks me to death." The screeching guitar coupled with the organ feel dirty but in an artful way.\n\n"Looking Glass Girl" is every oddball David Lynch scene set to music; "The umbrella man is shouting, we shake his paper hands... we peel away like tinsel"... all set to a light samba rhythm.\n\n"Relax" is black and dreamy with minimal strumming of guitar and bass drifting amid floating noises and bizarre, looping phrases & whispers. It is hypnotic, trippy and not boring despite being an instrumental.\n\n"Orgy", another hypnotic song, is very Middle East influenced and blends in a flute similar to another song from 'The Top'. When she sings, "Overgrown senses ripple and spark... we could swim, my little fishes and me" somehow on a song called Orgy I don't think she's talking about the fishes in the deep blue sea. "This Green City" is similar in tone and content.\n\nOne of the singles is the upbeat "Like An Animal", which is unlike the other tracks without feeling out of place. Jeanette's vocals are almost ethereal here, sounding much bigger than elsewhere. As with elsewhere on this disc, the words are strange, darkly suggestive and jarring and violent despite the sing-song bounce to it. The guitar feels like Smith did on "Head on the Door"... think "In-between Days".\n\nThe B-side "Mouth to Mouth" makes for one of the best songs and features a piercing guitar hook. "I laid in bed for hours remembering your taste."\n\n"The Tightrope", another instrumental, starts out sounding like a fun trip to the carnival but midday turns haunting as if it represents a horrifying childhood memory. The sense of loss, or maybe it's a sense of being lost, is powerful.\n\nThe album is a must for Goths, fans of either Cure & Siouxsie or anyone interested in really strange, original music. Despite the heavy hitters involved in the project, this album is unbearably obscure. Still it remains as one of the great albums of the 80's.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nthere's nowhere to go we're all in this but nothing can hurt us at all, August 8, 2006\nReviewer: Joshua F. Hendrickson "Friendlyfoe the Falchion" (Talent, OR USA)\nBlue Sunshine is my favorite album ever. Of course I am a Cure fan, love Siouxsie & the Banshees, plus plenty of other Gothic music like Bauhaus, Cocteau Twins, and Rasputina. I recognize that there are better albums out there, but Blue Sunshine is my favorite, and "Like an Animal" is my favorite song of all time, with my favorite lyric (the one I chose to use for a title for this review), one that never ceases to give me hope even in my darkest hours. And more than hope: I am a fantasy novelist, and the lyrics to "Like an Animal" long ago inspired in me a whole huge epic fantasy which I am currently writing. Though I'm always influenced in my imaginings by great music, I don't know where I would be without Blue Sunshine in particular. I write this review on the day the deluxe edition is released in the US, and I can't wait to get my hands on it and wrap my ears around it and "move inside my daydream like fingers in a glove, twisting round and round and round and round and round and round with love." "One mile up in the air, that's where she lives", and so do I, so do I. \n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nPostpunk Psychedelia, February 17, 2003\nReviewer: J.F. Quackenbush "jason_quackenbush" (SeaTac, WA United States)\nSteve Severin and Robert Smith, taking a break from Siouxsie and The Banshees and The Cure in the early eighties, produced this weirdly eclectic record. It's almost in the vein of what the Banshees did on albums like Hyaena and was a bit of a preview of the direction the Cure would go during the Japanese Whispers period, there aren't many stand out songs, but Mr. Alphabet Says is worth the price of admission all by itself. Fans of the Cure or Siouxsie and The Banshees should really have this lesser known gem in their collections.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nCertainly not mainstream..., January 10, 2000\nReviewer: peter charbonneau (Boston, MA United States)\nI was in college around 1990-91 when they finally "officially" released this album in the states so I was eager to get it. The collaboration between The Cure's Robert Smith and Sioxsie & the Banshees bassist Steven Severin as The Glove turns out to be interesting to say the least. The story goes they spent hours upon hours watching horror movies to descend into some altered state to record this album. [...]....\nAt times musically haphazard, it's certainly interesting to listen to. The fact that Robert Smith sings on only two songs, 'Mr. Alphabet Says' and 'Perfect Murder' shouldn't disappoint Cure fans. His influence is all over this album. 'Punish Me With Kisses' and 'Like An Animal' are pretty good singles, but the song of the album is 'A Blues in Drag.' It's a haunting instrumental with simplistic, reverberating piano keys that I still can't stop playing. Most of the album is sung by Jeanette Landray, who has an original, if not powerful, voice.\n\nFor a Cure or Siouxsie fan, it's a must-have. For anyone interested in 80's music, it's a worthy addition as something off the beaten path.\n\nHalf.com Details \nProducer: Merlin Griffiths, Robert Smith, Steven Severin \n\nAlbum Notes\nA unique psychedelic collaboration between members of new wave luminaries of The Cure and Siouxie & The Banshees; includes "Sex-eye-make-up" and "Blues In Drag." 1990, German import.\n\nGlove: Robert Smith , Steven Severin.\nAdditional personnel: Landray, Ginny Hewes, Anne Stephenson, Martin McCarrick, Andy Anderson.\n\nRecording information: 1983.\n\nThough not officially a Cure album, the Glove's sole outing, 1983's BLUE SUNSHINE, received the deluxe remastered/reissued treatment along with a trio of mid-'80s Cure classics in 2006. This project, a collaboration between Cure mastermind Robert Smith and Siouxsie & the Banshees bassist Steve Severin, was released shortly before THE TOP, the Cure's most experimental record, and the Banshees' atmospheric HYAENA (which had Smith sitting in on guitar), and finds the duo indulging in darkly whimsical synth-pop tunes. Drawing their name from the Beatles' YELLOW SUBMARINE animated film, Smith and Severin offer up songs that echo both of their bands, while occasionally adding a swirling current of psychedelia, as evidenced on the propulsive "Like an Animal," featuring Siouxsie sound-alike Landray, and the playful "Mr. Alphabet Says," a kissing cousin to the Cure's "The Lovecats."
This rock cd contains 15 tracks and runs 63min 24sec.
Freedb: da0ed90f
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