The Big Express

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Dave Gregory – guitar, Yamaha CP-80 electric grand piano, Mellotron, Prophet-5 and Roland JX-3P synthesizers, E-mu Emulator

We play the songs much too loud Mark Fisher, Mark Reed, David White in What Do You Call That Noise? The XTC Podcast Products All You Pretty Girls” scatters percussion and harmony vocals all throughout the listening space, with Andy Partridge's lead vocal nicely anchored to the center speaker. There’s a great moment during the chorus reprise at 2:25, when his harmony vocal (“write a little note…”) pops up directly behind the listener’s head.WTF Podcast (22 March 2016). "Todd Rundgren - WTF Podcast with Marc Maron #691". YouTube (Video). Event occurs at 1:26:20. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021 . Retrieved 22 September 2018. Harrison, Andrew. "XTC: English Settlement". Q. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007 . Retrieved 19 June 2011. a b Bernhardt, Todd; Partridge, Andy (17 February 2008). "Andy discusses 'The Everyday Story of Smalltown' ". Chalkhills. Whereas 1983’s Mummer leaned further into their pastoral acoustic side, The Big Express–as its title cleverly implies–goes ‘full steam ahead’ with some of the band’s most ambitiously-arranged uptempo songs to date. I’d argue that it’s kind of an interesting transitional work in their career, retaining some of the frenetic quirky energy of past outings while also showcasing the more-mature songwriting and sophisticated production that characterizes much of their later work. Reign of Blows (Vote No Violence) takes us deep into the reality of a world where super powers still fought each other, but just used other countries to do it in. “And iron maidens will slam, and by the half-light of burning republics, Joe Stalin looks just like Uncle Sam” captures the era perfectly and with a screaming guitar and thumping drums, you almost feel as if your pleasant train journey through the shires has suddenly taken a nasty diversion through the US invasion of Grenada.

Partridge, Andy; Bernhardt, Todd (2016). Complicated Game: Inside the Songs of XTC. Jawbone Press. ISBN 978-1-908279-78-1. a b c d e f Bernhardt, Todd; Partridge, Andy (8 July 2007). "Andy discusses 'Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her' ". Chalkhills. The Everyday Story of Smalltown" introduces side two with the sounds of kazoo and drums. [3] Partridge described the Swindon-inspired song as "all autobiographical", including the mention of a milkman who "lift[ed] his foot off [the] accelerator. It woke me up one morning and I thought, That's got to go into a bloody song." [39] Its sampled brass band marked the band's first use of an E-mu Emulator. [23] One of the guitar lines was taken from the Beatles' " Fixing a Hole" (1967). Gregory was enthused with the song and hoped it would have been released as a single, later opining that it was "twatted by a lousy mix". He said: "The big finale of the song features one of Andy's soon-to-be-favourite production techniques-- the over-layering of earlier vocal and instrumental themes as a counterpoint to the main chorus. It clatters off in jubilant canonic style, neatly cross-fading into the languid guitar introduction to 'I Bought Myself A Liarbird' -- a nice moment." [28] "I Bought Myself a Liarbird" [ edit ] After listening to the new 5.1 & Dolby Atmos mixes, it becomes abundantly clear that a traditional two-channel stereo soundstage was simply not enough to accurately express the band’s grandiose vision for this album. Though it’s obviously a retrofit surround sound experience, The Big Express translates so seamlessly into these immersive formats that it almost sounds like it was recorded with multichannel reproduction in mind. The remixes also add some much-needed ‘warmth’ to the album, smoothing out some of the brittle highs in the digital percussion and applying newfound presence and ‘punch’ to the rhythm section. The big tom-tom rolls across the rear speakers in “Wake Up” that used to sound thin in the original stereo presentation are now thunderous.I Bought Myself A Liarbird is an odd foray into suburban jazz, slight and more than a little bitter, for once the arrangement seems at odds with Partridge's biting lyrics whilst his ode to Pepper era Beatles on You're The Wish You Are I Had seems to be a strange detour, not the greatest song to begin with it jars and feels even weaker when placed before Colin's much superior I Remember The Sun.