The album Scott Walker called “pretty perfect”
Scott Walker moved fast, never staying in one place for too long. Stagnation, in his view, was as good as the death of art. It also dampens intrigue, which he felt was a pretty sure way to eradicate excellence. “Music has to be interesting,” he once said. “It has to keep taking you into places that you’re at least not used to.”
Throughout his career, Walker’s music carried a common thread: incorporating unpredictability in ways that challenged how you felt as a listener. While some of his songs, like ‘Dutchess’, are more conformist in their execution of musical sensibilities, most of his discography played with various elements of convention, resulting in a whirring jungle of sounds and arrangements.
The fact that Walker’s artistry always arrived ahead of its time wasn’t lost on the musician. In fact, he leaned into it, enjoying the fact that his compositions made sense to no one but him. As he once put it, “I feel I’m writing for everyone. Just they haven’t discovered it yet. I’ll be six feet under—but they will.” A prophecy, it would seem, that rings true the more time passes.
From his earlier material through to masterpieces like Soused, the singer yearned for the avant-garde, no matter what that may have looked like. Teaming up with others, like Sun O))), was more of an enabler than a setback as he worked hard to deliver his very own brand of eclectic sonic tapestries despite his ageing years.
By marrying contemporary concepts with traditional, nostalgic ones, Soused became a mirage-like experience filled with haunting ambience and complete with the exact calibre of material you might expect from someone as forward-thinking. Songs like ‘Lullaby’, for instance, might be a turn-off for the everyday listener, but if that’s the case, it achieves exactly what it’s set out to do.
According to the singer, this could be considered his magnum opus, especially if you consider the ways he reached for greatness throughout his entire discography. “People say there’s a certain sound in the early stuff that runs through everything. There probably is,” he once told The Guardian, discussing the themes and sounds that pervade all of his material.
However, it’s this observation that makes it easy for him to view each album as its own unique standard. “I can rate them, the albums, as I go along,” he admitted. While it’s not as simple with “the early ones” because “I’ve no idea any more”, he likens the success of Tilt and “what I wanted to get” to about 65%. “Then the next album was 75%,” he said, adding, “[then] I hit Soused, which was pretty perfect.”
The album might seem immensely acquired in today’s blaring landscape, but there’s something inherently intriguing about the whole thing. ‘Lullaby’ might be the most difficult track to swallow, but once you grow accustomed to the strangeness to which he bellows and the uneasiness of the accompanying arrangements, it’s hard to resume your usual, everyday listening.