Written In The Stars
Lounge lizard’s labour of love reissued with previously hidden pentimento.
The story of how Horoscope became Mamouna becomes clear
Bryan Ferry
Mamouna/horoscope: Deluxe Reissue
★★★★★
BMG 405038885477 (3CD, 2LP)
Just out of reach, glowing. From Stranded through Country Life to Siren, Bryan Ferry led Roxy Music into a golden period of yearning, of seeking the exquisite, the sublime, the probably impossible. As time went by he was to take the odd year or two off, but he never quite gave up the quest. That’s the thing with incurable romantics. They’re incurable. It’s safe to say that members of that tribe will be well up for a nine-minute funk version of Mother Of Pearl. Yes, you read that right. This redux Mamouna comes bejewelled with such treats.
Prior to the 1994 release of the original, Ferry had “three or four miserable years”, he once said. However, ’93’s Taxi, a (by his standards) hurried covers (or “ready-mades”) album, reset his muse and got the renowned procrastinator to commit to finishing something, to conceding that it was done. When Mamouna did then appear, after so much delay and conjecture that it was approaching mythological status, it had a lot to live up to. Its creation, under the working title Horoscope, had involved almost endless sessions, overdubs, adding and subtracting of layers and tweaking of textures. That’s all here. (Inevitably, the artwork’s lush.)
Ferry’s “search for perfection” (to again quote Mother Of Pearl) had seemingly evolved from a reaching for ideal love to a reaching for ideal sound. Overshadowed by his pop-culture persona, he rarely gets credit for this. His obsession with each nuance of the heft and sheen of his records was every bit as valid and rigorous as, say, Eno’s experiments. At various points, Horoscope, as it was, involved input from (among others) Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay, Nile Rodgers, David Gilmour, Pino Palladino, Guy Pratt, Richard T Norris, Maceo Parker, Chic’s vocalists, and yes, Eno, too. So, upon release, unconscionable magic was anticipated. And because it wasn’t flash or loud or obvious, most critics didn’t find it there. Sure, it was sophisto-pop of the classiest order, with an Avalon aftertaste, but the songs were functional and there was little in the way of confessional or revelation. It was, it was deemed, just pretty good, not his magnum opus.
The thing is, it wasn’t so much about the songs as a mood, a vibe. And that mood, that vibe, is unique. Notice the way it affects the space you’re in. Its rhythms, flows, loops and hushed cascades are inventing a new kind of funk, a reset of blues. All the colours brought in by the guest players swirl into a burnished orange, or a sexy purple.
It’s perhaps a Howard Hodgkin, when people were expecting a David Hockney; an Alex Katz when the wall had been cleared for a Lichtenstein.
There are reissues which tick boxes and reissues which reveal something new. This is in the latter camp. The story of how Horoscope became Mamouna becomes clear, with formative versions (usually) slimmer or slower. Loop De Li was shelved until 2014‘s Avonmore. And that Mother Of Pearl is both holy grail and too much fun. There are filmic instrumentals (Your Painted Smile is especially elegant), and piano-and-guide-vocal takes which don’t dilute any illusions. As Ferry sings lines like “the here and now, the ghost of yesterday”, the whole comes very close to representing the quintessence, the decoction, the lifeblood of Ferry’s aesthetic. On this multivalent manifestation of Mamouna, that search for perfection, his own predilection, goes on.