Echo & The Bunnymen- "Do It Clean" (1983) Live in London

Today (La) luna is six months old.  My very first post was an Echo & The Bunnymen clip, so I thought I'd mark this milestone with another. Thank you to all my readers past and present for all the kind words and support. I can't wait to see where we're at in another six months. If you want to give (La) luna a birthday present, then hit that 'follow' button :)

Echo & The Bunnymen- Porcupine (1983) MP3 & FLAC -For Ol' Foggy-

"Will I still be soiled when the dirt is off?"

Arguably Echo & The Bunnymen's most under-appreciated album, Porcupine is both more melodic and less accessible than its predecessors Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here, but still manages to retain the distinctive neo-psychedelic take on Post-Punk that characterizes these earlier albums. Porcupine is also distinguished by the Middle-Eastern and Indian influences woven throughout the album; this is noticeable from the first track, the brilliant single, "The Cutter," which is built around a sitar-like synth-line that gives the song its unique, slightly skewed feel. Porcupine also finds the band exploring sonic textures unprecedented in their earlier work such as the Spanish guitar on "Heads Will Roll," a song also featuring the rhythmic use of a string section, something that would largely define the sound of their next album, Ocean Rain. Some mention should be made of Ian McCulloch's vocals, which verge on operatic at times but never fail to hit their mark in terms of lending the songs a sense of grandeur and drama. A truly fine album that tends to get overshadowed by the masterpiece that followed it.

Echo & The Bunnymen- Heaven Up Here (1981) MP3 & FLAC -For Rose-

"There's something to be said for you and your hopes of higher ruling, but the slug on my neck won't stop chewing."

Easily the darkest and most difficult of Echo & The Bunnymen's initial run of albums (which is really saying something given this band's penchant for gloom), Heaven Up Here stands with  Ocean Rain as their most fully-formed and ceaselessly inventive artistic statements. While not as strikingly melodic as their debut, Crocodiles, Heaven Up Here offers a wider sonic palette, even including some traces of funk. Ian McCulloch has said that the band was trying to come up with a "soul album," and though there isn't anything recognizably soul about this album in the traditional sense, Heaven Up Here does have a unique sound that sets it apart from any other Post-Punk album of its era. From the work of vastly underrated rhythm section Pete De Frietas and Les Pattinson to Will Sergeant's increasingly nuanced guitar work to McCulloch's powerful croon, Echo & The Bunnymen sound like a band steeped in intimations of their own brilliance. For example, "It Was a Pleasure" sounds like a Talking Heads' song dragged, kicking and screaming, into much darker territory, with Sergeant's staccato funk punctuating one of McCulloch's more Bowie-esque vocals. Chronologically situated as it is between their debut and the more accessible albums that followed on its heels, Heaven Up Here offers a glimpse of Echo & The Bunnymen in their most uncompromising phase.

Echo & The Bunnymen- S/T (1987) MP3 & FLAC -For Jo Jo-

"Just when you think she's yours, she's flown to other shores, to laugh at how you break and melt into her lake."

Without a doubt, Echo & The Bunnymen's eponymous swan-song is the most "commercial" of the albums recorded by the band in its original (and best) incarnation. Gone is the abrasive Post-Punk guitar-work that characterized Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here, and gone are the plucking, bowing strings that gave Ocean Rain such a distinctive sound. The cleaner, jangly guitar sound and greater emphasis on keyboards can be attributed to the choice of Laurie Latham (Squeeze, Paul Young) as producer and the fact that the band was too busy falling apart to counteract this commercial influence. Whatever the reason, Echo & The Bunnymen has tended to be either reviled or overlooked as a result, which is both unfortunate and unfair given the quality of the songs it contains. In addition to the cleaner production, Ian McCulloch's vocals also mark a break with the past, showing more range and sounding more restrained when he is not trying to channel the ghost of Jim Morrison. While the band apparently traded in their Post-Punk credentials for a 60s jangle and psychedelia fetish (a trendy move in 1987), and one band member has notoriously described it as "an overcooked fish," Echo & The Bunnymen deserves far better than its current reputation.

Echo & The Bunnymen- History of the Peel Sessions: 1979-1997 (1997) MP3 & FLAC

"I've been up to Villiers Terrace. I've been in a daze for days. I drank some of the medicine, and I didn't like the taste."

History of the Peel Sessions: 1979-1997 saw limited release as a bonus disc issued with early copies of Echo & The Bunnymen's 1997 comeback album Evergreen. While not a comprehensive collection, the album does a very good job of cherry-picking the best of The Bunnymen's limited Peel Session recordings (no sessions were recorded from late 1983 to late 1997). What makes it worth seeking out are the early tracks, such as "Villiers Terrace," recorded nearly a year before the release of their debut album Crocodiles. While all the elements that made their debut so distinctive are already in place (except drummer Pete DeFreitas), Ian McCulloch's vocals are often snarling and aggressive (in a good way), giving the songs a bite and swagger not usually associated with this band. In addition, the live-in-studio sound lends the songs a sense of immediacy often lacking on their studio albums. The only track not performed by the original incarnation of the band is "Rescue," which dates from 1997, and it is no coincidence that this is the only non-essential track in the collection.

Ian McCulloch- Candleland (1989) MP3 & FLAC

"I heard the footsteps in the street. I saw the lights on the flickering wall. I moved my lips but I couldn't speak, choked on the wonder of it all."

In the context of the Echo & The Bunnymen oeuvre, Candleland functions as little more than a footnote, but it deserves so much better. Ian McCulloch's first release after the dissolution of the original incarnation of The Bunnymen is a dark, shimmering meditation on death and its aftermath (specifically the then-recent deaths of his father as well as Bunnymen drummer Pete DeFreitas), and for those dissatisfied with the commercial turn The Bunnymen took on their self-titled final LP, it might sound like a more worthy successor to the masterful Ocean Rain. While Candleland is not a radical departure from McCulloch's work with his previous band, he does walk down some new paths here, and his lyrics and vocals are (arguably) among the best of his career. If that isn't enough, the ethereal voice of Elisabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins) pops up on the title track as well. This is long out of print and a hard one to find in lossless.

Echo & the Bunnymen- Ocean Rain (1984) MP3 & FLAC

"The pleasure of pain endured to purify our misfit ways and magnify our crystal days."

Ocean Rain stands as Echo & the Bunnymen's undisputed masterpiece and is one of the most distinctive albums of the 1980's. Four years after Crocodiles, McCulloch & co. had moved beyond the familiar trappings of Post-Punk toward the more lush, orchestrated sound that makes Ocean Rain so singular. I remember thinking, after I heard it for the first time, that it sounded like it was recorded at the bottom of the ocean in an empty submarine. Plucked orchestral strings and a heavy dose of reverb provide a strange aquatic foundation for McCulloch's brooding vocals and the rest of the band is in typical fine form. Never again would the Bunnymen sound this inventive. Their next (and final) album wouldn't appear until three years later, and when it did, they had traded these memorable Post-Punk sea shanties for odes to the Doors and a Jangle-Pop fetish. Ocean Rain is as essential as it gets.

Echo & The Bunnymen- Crocodiles (1980) MP3 & FLAC

"Stars are stars and they shine so hard."

Fuck, can this really be 30 years old?!? This is the debut album from the original incarnation of Echo & the Bunnymen (that "other" band from Liverpool). If your only reference to Echo & the Bunnymen is "Bring on the Dancing Horses," then Crocodiles, a dark, brooding Post-Punk masterpiece, will be something of a revelation. While lead vocalist Ian McCulloch and the rhythm section comprised of the late Pete De Freitas (drums) and Les Pattinson (Bass) are in fine form here, Crocodiles is perhaps lead guitarist Will Sergeant's finest hour, a tour de force of Post-Punk guitar textures. Yes, the lyrics are a bit cryptic at times, and for some, it may seem an overly gloomy affair, but it is never anything less than original, and in my opinion, this is essential listening.

The Namesake

Our inaugural post should honor the song that gives this blog its title (if not its inspiration).  More on Echo & The Bunnymen to follow soon...