release date: Sep. 1983
format: vinyl (ILPS 9762) / cd (1990 reissue) / cd (2008 reissue)
[album rate: 4,5 / 5] [4,58]
producer: Tom Waits
label: Island Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Underground" (4 / 5) - 2. "Shore Leave" (4 / 5) - 4. "Johnsburg, Illinois" - 5. "16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six" (5 / 5) - 7. "In the Neighborhood" (5 / 5) - 8. "Just Another Sucker on the Vine" - 9. "Frank's Wild Years" (4 / 5) - 10. "Swordfishtrombone" - 11. "Down, Down, Down" (4 / 5) - 12. "Soldier's Things" (4 / 5) - 13. "Gin Soaked Boy" - 15. "Rainbirds"
8th studio album by Tom Waits following his fine Heartattack and Vine (1980) with an unusually long break of three years in between releases. With his first six albums, Waits had lived what seems to be a fixed write/compose-record-tour-life on repeat - booking studios for new recordings, recording new tracks, releasing new albums and embarking on a long tour with new material, after which he would start all over and repeat the process in a one-year cycle.
The writing process with the soundtrack for (the Francis Ford Coppola film) "One From the Heart" (1982) had occupied his time for more than six months. It had prevented him from touring after the release of Heartattack... and it wasn't until '81 that he was finally free to tour again with the songs from his most recent album - a tour which also brought him to Europe. It was during this period that he attempted to break free from his old persona, even though everyone everywhere expected to hear "The Heart of Saturday Night" tracks over and over again. But Waits had grown tired of his image and tired of singing the same (old) songs, and much in a similar way as he had found change in his private life, he had sought change in his music. He had released his first seven albums on Asylum, but upon listening to recordings from his upcoming release, the 'money men' at the label saw no interest in funding a new Waits album of - what they thought was - another non-commercial album. Instead, Waits and wife Kathleen Brennan secured the recordings to be released on Island Records. Swordfishtrombones is the first since his debut not to be produced by Bones Howe. As replacement, Waits installed himself in that role for the first time.
Stylistically, the album is a modern masterpiece where Waits experiments with different styles and where he tries out new ways of creating music. The end result is mainly a singer / songwriter album with ties to blues, rhythm & blues, and vocal jazz AND all that with a touch of experimental rock and art rock lending from Captain Beefheart, world music, Kurt Weill, and with ingredients from non-tonal music to produce a completely new mix of contemporary popular music.
The album is one of my first acquisitions with Tom Waits. Around 1987 / '88 I stumpled upon the album in the local music store and there I noted that it featured "In the Neighborhood", "16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought-Six" - both of which where great songs that I knew of, and then it had "Soldier's Things" on the track list. It was a song I knew in a fine interpretation by Paul Young found on his fine The Secret of Association (1985), and all of these were songs that for me literally opened a door to a new world of music. This music was new and completely different from what I normally found myself listening to, and it was this very album that really opened the door into his earlier material. I still listen to this one from time to time and it has never ceased to sound fresh.
Swordfishtrombones is the second album in a row and the third so far from Waits to make its way to "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".
A must.
[ allmusic.com, Q Magazine, Mojo, Uncut 5 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]
1983 Favourite releases: 1. New Order Power, Corruption & Lies - 2. Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones - 3. Big Country The Crossing
