Often referred to as
the Fall
leader's first
spoken word
album,
Post Nearly Man
goes well past that with a messy bunch of
sound collages
and bite-size chunks of
Fall
music. The album comes off like the tape experiments and prose that appeared on
B-sides on and off since 1984 or so with more purpose and room to roam. There's a wealth of overlapping voices, Dictaphone recordings, and oddball tape edits with an adaptation of an
H.P. Lovecraft
story amongst it all.
Smith
sounds coherent and inspired but there's a lot less of his voice than expected, with quite a bit of the disc given up to guest speakers.
has referred to it as a "cursed" album, a record company idea and recorded in part at
Dead or Alive
and
Kylie Minogue
producer
Pete Waterman
's studio where the engineers never "got it." It's clumsy, unnecessary, and indulgent, but interesting and altogether listenable. ~ David Jeffries