Scott Walker - Bish Bosch

I'm not sure anyone actually anticipates a new record from Scott Walker. That's not to say there's nothing to anticipate; since his breakthrough in the mid-60s as one-third of The Walker Brothers, Scott has garnered a huge following; initially for his emotive, honeyed voice, and then increasingly with each release for his bold, idiosyncratic approaches to songwriting and arrangement. But since 1984's Climate Of Hunter, his output has been sporadic, and each new recording has seemed to appear suddenly; an unexpected guest at the dinnertable. Every time Walker appears, spectre-like, on the release schedules, there's a shallow intake of breath. It never seems like he's slowing down, or getting soft in his old age, but there is the sense that something that happens so rarely could indeed one day cease to happen at all. Bish Bosch is Walker's first album since 2006's The Drift. A bleak monolith of sound, The Drift had a strange finality to it, a sense of the very earth grinding to a halt. A death. And now, Bish Bosch. Here comes the fire.

"Norsemen!

           DO NOT!

           eat the big pink mint"

- 'SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)'

As with many of his more recent records, particularly The Drift and 1995's Tilt, Walker's lyrics are dense and powerful, rich with allusions to history and culture that are sometimes plain and sometimes almost deliberately obscure. These aren't just the hollow ravings of a charlatan; you can tell that Scott himself knows what his songs are about and the footnoted lyric booklet enclosed goes some way to illustrate that. But a lot of his meaning remains a mystery that lies waiting to be slowly unpicked. While this kind of oblique songwriting will not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Scott Walker's recent material, there's a definite difference in the tone of the lyrics on Bish Bosch. He's angrier, he's more cynical and he is, dare I say it, more playful. There're definitely moments of humour here, but these are the puerile chuckles of a man who's sat sharpening a knife as you lie chained to a radiator at his feet. You'll be surprised. Maybe you'll even give out a hollow laugh. But overall, you'll still be terrified.

"Ah my old

          Scabby Sachem

          a sphincter's tooting our tune"

- 'Corps de Blah'

The arrangements on Bish Bosch share these strange mood swings. Who can explain why, at two minutes in, the beat-heavy wail of 'Phrasing' breaks into a tropical beach party for a few bars before switching back with the most snarling, badass guitar line heard all year. Can anyone give me a clue as to why we haven't heard fart noises used in a musical context before ('Corps de Blah’)? The insanely funky 'Epizootics' alternates between ominous rainforest slink, beautifully widescreen horn blasted showtunes and swing dance freakouts before collapsing into a shrill wash of drones, all to be topped off with ephemeral ukelele strum. It could be said that this is Scott Walker's most diverse album, but that statement doesn't feel quite right; it isn't like any of these tracks are 'Scott Walker does rock' or 'Scott Walker does dance' or even 'Scott Walker does monstrous avant-garde beat mayhem'. These are simply elements deftly woven into the structure of the songs, which are still as quintessentially Scott Walker as anything else that he has released. The man's work is so distinctive that it could never really be mistaken for anyone else.

"This is my job

          I don't come around and put out

          your red light when you work"

- 'SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)'

While Tilt felt like an eerie deconstruction of Scott Walker's crooning past, The Drift, with its side-of-meat percussion and cautionary tales about attempting to record a donkey braying in fear, seemed like a deconstruction of music in general. In comparison, Bish Bosch is a carnival of sound, all tense rhythms and explosions of noise, with, as always, Walker's haunting croon as the centre the other pieces jostle themselves around. This record is a brash, lewd exercise which sees Walker more vital and ambitious than ever before. When it comes to waiting on Scott Walker, patience is definitely a virtue. But we'd better have the table set to welcome him, because he will most certainly be back someday soon.