PRIVATE PARTS & PIECES IV - A CATCH AT THE TABLES

He is the king of the 12 string acoustic guitar! On this record, he put some color to his guitar parts, adding many floating keyboards strings, good bass and sequenced drums (drumbox). "Earth Man" is so relaxing with its 12-string guitar and the loud floating strings of keyboards. One of his best of the "Private Parts & Pieces" series.

We feel here that Anthony PHILLIPS has some talent to make New Age albums, like his wonderful "1984".

On this fourth leg of his « Private Parts », Anthony is surrounded by a couple of artist which are not providing lots of support, I'm afraid.

Still, this album is varied and offers some nice keyboards parts which convey a definite symphonic atmosphere to the whole. But this is album is vastly dominated by the acoustic guitar; which has not always been the case with Anthony (remember "1984").

Most of his eighties production will be dedicated to these "Private Parts". Some are much better than others (my fave by far is the second one). I guess that it might be better for the casual fan to grab "Harvest Of The Year" which is a compilation of the first four ones than to investigate in each of them. At least I feel so.

Three stars for this fourth one because it is at times poignant but it usually lacks in great pieces of music.

Another (along with Back To The Pavilion) extraordinary example of a genuine concept album under the rubric of Private Parts & Pieces. Moreover, unlike Back To The Pavilion, this one is modestly, almost beggarly performed by acoustic guitar (mostly soloing), some electronic percussion (mostly pre-programmed) and some simple (if not primitive) synth passages, i.e. the instrumentation is overall quite minimalist if not poor. So, no idea how this album manages to make an impression of complex and sophisticated concept work. But it does. It really makes such an impression. For example, Arboretum Suite in four parts is not even camouflaged as a genuine sympho prog epic, it's performed as a bunch of guitar exercises... but perceived as an epic. Of course the album cannot be considered a masterpiece, but it's unique in its own way.

Earth man

The fourth entry in Anthony Phillips' Private Parts & Pieces-series is a bit more towards New-Age territory compared to its more or less purely Classical predecessor. The sound is still mostly dominated by acoustic guitars, but this time there are also some synthesisers and drum machines co-existing with Ant's typical acoustic guitar playing which makes the whole thing a bit more varied instrumentally. The track Earth Man even goes all the way towards purely electronic music, bringing to mind the works of Vangelis. Bouncer is in a higher tempo than most tunes in the Private Parts & Pieces-series and is another decent number. The almost 11 minute Dawn Over The Lake is however a tedious and overly long piece.

Like most albums in the series, Private Parts & Pieces IV: A Catch At The Tables is almost completely instrumental. There is however one vocal number in Sistine.

Overall, this is a decent collection of mostly relaxing tunes that I find moderately enjoyable even if some passages are downright boring. I prefer this album over the first Private Parts & Pieces album as well as over Private Parts & Pieces III: Antiques, but it is still inferior to Private Parts & Pieces II: Back To The Pavilion.

Recommended only for fans and collectors of Anthony Phillips in general and the Private Parts & Pieces- series in particular

A mixed bag of acoustic classical music and symphonic synth coloured music. Arboretum suite is an elaborate piece starting acoustically and moving to a keyboard-drive final part.

"Earth man" is another highlight with dominant synths, not unsimilar to the 1984 album.

"Down over the lake" offers acoustic strumming which is not varied and drum box add to being quite monotonous - at the same time, the track clocks at over 10 minutes.

"Bouncer" features classical guitar with changed colour and terrible drum pattern that contradicts baroque music. "Eduardo" fixes the mood by focusing on an acoustic guitar duo showcasing instrumental abilities. "Heart of darkness" is the most symphonic piece with a nice sequence of synth chords.

A good but unfocused effort and not much to be found for a progressive listener.

Something that's interesting about the course of Genesis history and the way the band and its various members were received, is that without exception, every single one of them 'went pop', but only some of them were blamed for it. To me, 'prog' has always been a division of 'pop', and the pejorative meaning of that latter word only came later when 'prog' morphed from an attitude into a genre and needed to have boundaries that could be policed. As opposed to 'selling out', a much more plausible theory is that Genesis and its (former) members just moved with the times, as pop musicians do, and that some were just better at it than others.

Someone who clearly wasn't cut out to be a pop star, was Anthony Phillips. Not that he is a bad songwriter, in fact, he is a very good songwriter, albeit one that doesn't deal in hooks, and therefore, as a pop musician, unfit for the 80s. This - and probably also musical taste - led Phillips to embark on an alternative route for his solo career of free music, one that eventually became his main course: the Private Parts & Pieces series, in which he explored, for all intents and purposes, a kind of modern chamber music with the twelve string guitar as a basis (most of the times).

This is the fourth installment, and sees the introduction of the drum machine in the series. Which in itself is an interesting event, as this is also something that all the Genesis members eventually start to do. Phillips had already used it on '1984', but on that album it served much more as a cheap replacement for real drums, as opposed to him using the drum machine like it was used on Genesis' 'Duchess', or Phil Collins' 'In The Air Tonight': as an instrument providing a kind of relentlessness and a kind of sound that would be impossible from a live drummer, essentially using the drum machine as an instrument unique onto itself.

The machine rears its head in the fourth installment of the 'Arboretum Suite', a beautiful piece, mainly played on 6 string and 12 string guitar (and some keyboard), that Phillips composed for the wedding of two friends in 1980, based on Winkworth Arboretum in Surrey. Here, it is just playing along in the background. Yet, on another piece, 'Dawn Over The Lake', the machine is an integral part of the composition. This is just Phillips improvising on his 12 string guitar, while the drum machine is playing. The piece lasts for more than 10 minutes and is one of the most exquisite things Phillips, or any Genesis member, ever set to record. He not only follows the drum machine with his playing, he also plays into its echoing, using the echo effect on his 12 string too, creating all kinds of overtones to great atmospheric and emotional effect.

That the entirety of the album is not as good as that piece, can hardly be surprising or disappointing. Most pieces on the album are beautiful displays of what could be called avant-chamber, a bit in the vein of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, but with a lot more British romanticism weaved into it. There's a good song, 'Sistine', which is a lovely sailor love song, with a typically British funny side to it. Some of the keyboard pieces are maybe not as good, a bit too New Agey, and overall the sound of the recording is very tinny, thin and bright without much body to it.

Having said that, while the lows are not that low, the highs here are very very high, so overall this is a very good Anthony Phillips album.