Items14The creator’s order
- 1
PyramidsThe bright synth pulse propels a story about Cleopatra in ancient Egypt, then the groove slows and shifts to a present-day scene. The turn feels like entering another room in the same building. Keeping the first half in your ear makes the modern setting more unsettling.0 - 2
Close to the EdgeThe opening rush of guitar and drums gives way to overlapping voices and a long, still passage. The organ builds a bridge from that quiet into a return of the earlier tune. Hear it as one side of a record and you can feel how much that pause changes the way the band comes back in.0 - 3
Water No Get EnemyThe horns establish the tune and the rhythm section settles in long before anybody sings. When Fela enters, the chorus turns a groove you've already spent time with into a conversation. The wait is part of the music, because you know exactly what the voices are joining.0 - 4
EchoesA lone ping leads into harmony singing and then an extended groove. The band pulls that firm footing away in the middle, leaving strange calls and space before the pulse comes back. The same melodic material sounds harder won after the time spent out of sight of it.0 - 5
Impossible SoulPrivate doubt passes through a heavily treated vocal and an exuberant group refrain. By the time the big electronic section gives way to a small acoustic ending, the same questions are back at a more human scale. The full digital track lets you hear those two changes in scale together.0 - 6
Pharaoh's DanceProducer Teo Macero made the opening start and stop by repeating fragments of the band’s playing. Listen around nine minutes for the repeated keyboard-and-percussion figure. Those edits give you temporary points of reference amid a performance whose texture keeps shifting.0 - 7
Jesus of SuburbiaThe five sections give the narrator space to move from self-introduction to a decision about leaving. The quieter address in the fourth section gives his certainty a wobble before the band races into the last one. You can hear which kind of bravado falls away and which kind he takes with him.0 - 8
Supper's ReadyAn intimate opening leads into the odd voices and sudden turns of the middle sections. The most satisfying change comes after the long, insistent organ passage, when a melody from early in the piece returns. That return makes a sprawling set of scenes feel like one trip back to a familiar place.0 - 9
Long Season (1996)First released Oct 25, 1996A circular piano figure makes the first stretch easy to settle into. A long percussion passage makes time feel much less regular in the middle, and the returning figure is recognizable even after the track has wandered so far. The studio recording makes a half hour feel like leaving and coming back…0 - 10
The Last BaronA delayed guitar part opens a little space before the riffs crowd back in. The turns are often sharp enough to feel like a new song is starting. When a sung passage comes around again, it gives you something familiar to carry into the next instrumental stretch.0
