Last year on this date, 4/5, we had a 45 party. Maybe it was the year before. Everybody brought a few records and we whooped it up. I wanted to do it again but we have an art opening to attend so I made plans to talk about the new Real Angel Corpus Christi record. Lindsey Hutton writes the liner notes and I should probably just reprint those but here goes.
The package is stunning, like a giant 45, a European one on the front and and an American one on the flip side. We have two Angel Corpus Christi 7 inches and three of those four sides are included here. The record is chocked full of singles.
The accordion is exactly the right instrument for Angel’s International pop sound. Pull Girl is a smash. The low end quiver on Dream Baby Dream rattles the dishes in our cupboard. The ultimate Suicide song features Alan Vega himself on backups. Angel’s Barbarians cover, a perfect choice for her, sounds like it’s being performed live in a teen club, maybe a converted bowling alley, the way bands sounded in the Panorama Bowl when I was sixteen. Dean and Britta join Angel on an a dreamy, instrumental version of Femme Fatale, maybe my favorite cut. I would die to hear that played on the street in SF the way she used to.
Sadder is Peggi’s favorite! If only Lou Reed had taken the advice Angel offers on Lou Reed’s Hair. MX80’s Bruce Anderson plays guitar on Face in the Crowd and the lp finishes with a brilliant mash-up of Walk on the Wild Side and Henry Mancini’s Elephant Walk.