Phil Manzanera/801 - Listen Now (1977)

Dan:

Phil Manzanera was the guitarist in Roxy Music. During a temporary disbanding of Roxy, Manzanera formed 801 alongside Brian Eno, Bill MacCormick, Francis Monkman, Simon Philips, and Lloyd Watson. 801's first album was a live performance recorded in 1976. Listen Now followed in 1977 and was the only studio album made by the group, which went on to record at least three more live albums. 

Manzanera also recorded solo albums away from the 801 ensemble. I first became aware of these through a compilation album titled Guitarissimo, which was recommended by a friend who knew I liked Roxy Music. That led me to Diamond Head and Listen Now, which had the best tunes on Guitarissimo. 

Listen Now has become a "go to" album for two main reasons. First, the vocals by Simon Ainley are a revelation. Outside of his work with 801 and a collective known as Random Hold, he appears to have few recording credits. That's surprising given the strength of his singing on Listen Now. It's a very human voice that is not stretched for more dramatic impact. This allows the lyrics to be easily heard and understood. I know nothing more about him.

My second reason is the songs themselves. "Listen Now" is a mid-tempo track that leads off the album and it features lyrics with obvious political importance. It's basically a warning about fascism, a suitable topic for a British band but increasingly relevant to all societies. It can also be seen as relevant to any political situation in which power is wrested away from people who have "taught ourselves to trust our heads" but in an oppressive society "it's getting nowhere."

Is it any wonder you've got no power

When you pay a thief to keep it for you?

Is it a surprise that your wine is sour

When you let a liar choose the brew he pours you?

Talk on the wire about force and choice

It's uncomfortable to raise your voice

Everybody whispering behind their hand

Selling their despair to any stronger man

Don't have to listen now

Having experienced some career-changing organizational politics, I resonate with the lyrics of "Listen Now," which reflect the fear of tyranny while warning to be wary and watchful.

"That Falling Feeling," which ends the album, also entertains thoughts that rarely are heard in any form of popular music, except prog. It's about impending personal doom when you realize that your past has caught up with you. 

Yesterday you knew what to say

To keep them sweet

But just one fall and it's all you can do

To keep your feet

Yes we know you can't help telling lies

That's too bad, you should have used your eyes

To stop that falling feeling

Moving in

And here's that falling feeling

Moving in

You can feel it

You can feel it moving in

The album closes with the last two lines repeated over and over, then stops abruptly.

I don't relate personally to a falling feeling, but it makes me think of liars and scoundrels who rose by exploiting others and who now have to face the music as part of a reckoning that could be legal, spiritual, or physical. It's a great song about social justice.

The short instrumental, "Island," provides lovely respite from the more anguishing songs. I love the way that Manzanera harnesses his amazing technique to serve up guitar lines with deep emotional impact over Eno's soothing synths.

Steve:

I am relatively new to Listen Now - I picked up my first copy just several years ago. It was an old student radio promo copy at a bookstore near Penn State University. Coincidentally, this past winter I picked up another Manzanera album, K-Scope, at the same bookstore; it is the follow-up to Listen Now and well worth investigating. My very first Manzanera album (801 Live) was acquired near my own college when I was a student. Something about discarded Phil Manzanera albums and college towns go together like bread and butter, I suppose.  

I've grown quite fond of Listen Now in the short time it's been with me. It sports GREAT talent handling the instrumental work and the smooth, professional production style of late-70s prog artists like Camel and The Alan Parsons Project, but with more grit to the sound. Lyrics are also more carefully devised to deliver messages. Dan summarized this latter point very well with his examples above, but I'd like to call out a couple of other tracks that caught my attention.

Although I'm not sure of its message per se, the lyrics of "Flight 19" offer a chaotic, wordy account of some domestic dispute/mishap, where it's difficult to know which character's point of view is represented in any given line. I've re-read it three times and I'm still trying to figure out what happened. I like that kind of ambiguity, especially since it's appropriate given the confusion happening in these characters' lives. There's some dark humor too - after Suzie crashes her car into a wall, the chorus begins, "Lonely one / A wall is not a home".

More relatable sentiments can be found on "Postcard Love", a simple but resonant snapshot of a guy looking at a postcard he received from an old friend, the first received in quite a while. But the friend in question is revealed to be a woman he was in love with but who did not feel the same way for him - and so he remained in "The Friend Zone". The lyric plays with the notion of postcards ending with "With Love" as a salutation, but we all know that's only a figure of speech in cases like these. The cheapness and triviality of postcards is also explored here.

Lastly, I'd like to elaborate on Dan's reference that lead vocalist Simon Ainley was involved with a group called Random Hold. I have Random Hold's first album, Etceteraville (produced by Peter Hammill), and it bears mentioning that Bill MacCormick, Phil Manzanera's bassist and primary songwriting partner on Listen Now, also plays in Random Hold. Mysteriously, the only vocal credit listed is simply for "Random Hold". Although Ainley is not credited as a performer, his name appears in the songwriting credits, leading me to believe he IS the mysterious unnamed singer. What little information exists online seems to confirm this. Although this is not intended to be a Random Hold review, their debut album (released 1980) sounds like a descendant of Listen Now - but a more stripped down, Eno-esque post-punk version, if you can picture that.