That Ribbon Cracks Like This One: SCOTT WALKER'S TILT (1995)
When it first appeared, in 1995, Scott Walker’s album Tilt was difficult to fathom – even Climate of Hunter , his previous release, a whole decade earlier, suddenly sounded by comparison pretty commercial. Tilt ’s abrasive, brooding arrangements, operatic tropes and lyrical ambiguity seemingly conspired to confound. Thirty years on and in the context of his 21st-century releases like The Drift and Bish Bosch , Tilt feels like less of a hard listen and I turn to it more and more. In fact, I think it might just be the legendary singer’s magnum opus. Ok, there’s Scotts 1 to 4. Every Walker aficionado loves those – especially Scott 4 . And of course Climate of Hunter has its fans. But Tilt is out there. It really was, and remains, an extraordinary record. Walker emerged in the middle of the 1990s from an extended period of seclusion which included a brief sojourn at a London art school – Byam Shaw, which in 1990 moved to new premises at the top of Holloway Road, near Archway. An artist