Search - Slappy Happy :: Camera

If only I could give it 0 stars...

P. Micocci | Houston, TX USA | 06/08/2003

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This is really, really bad. It pains me to say so, as I'm a big fan of all three of these artists, especially Peter Blegvad. I really wish I could recommend it, as I would almost everything else I've heard from all three, going back to the early Slapp Happy albums and the demo, "Alcohol" they made when they first approached Henry Cow to do a collaboration. That union in itself produced one brilliant album (Desperate Straights) and one brilliant cut off an otherwise so-so album ("War", off of "In Praise of Learning") but ended up splintering Slapp Happy until their reunion for "Ca Va" (which I like) and this howler. I don't remember hearing anything this bad since I saw the totally forgettable Philip Glass opera (I can't even remember the name!) based on a Grimms' fairy tale, with the immortal line, "This soup is good!" Or John Adams' "Nixon in China". I guess not everything was meant to be sung."

Camera - Art Bears type Opera

Eitenne the Reader | United States | 09/26/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ok, so it isn't the super fun pun-in-music suff like "Cava Vu", but "Camera" is Krause, Moore & Blegvad doing Opera (for the tube nonetheless) ala "Art Bears". A sort of Dagmar meets PDQ Bach (you have to admit you're hearing musical puns as well as lyrics) meets chanting from pre-history. At least some of the lyrics should have been in an ancient language - say perhaps in Avestan - to win a fifth star. The other ego of K-M-B, the dark "Art Bears" and non-pop "Slapp Happy" mind games that always seem more an experiment than a release...."

Ceci n'est pas une Slapp Happy

Steve Peters | Seattle, WA | 12/22/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"No, this is not a Slapp Happy album, and if you come to it expecting it to sound like one you will be disappointed. This is the members of Slapp Happy doing something else entirely: a contemporary chamber opera for television, complete with other classically trained singers, brass and woodwind sections, and the Balanescu string quartet. Libretto/lyrics by Blegvad (who does not sing or play), music composed by Moore (who does not play), and Krause singing in the lead role.



The rather existential storyline concerns a woman who has apparently never left her own room/country ("Camera"), and the relationship that develops with Forecast (sung by John Harris), a tax inspector who comes round to investigate her, as they venture out into the world together and are separated by forces beyond their control. As contemporary opera goes it's perfectly fine and interesting, and a very strong performance by Dagmar. Maybe not for everyone, but certainly not a big stretch for fans of Art Bears or Dagmar's Eisler/Brecht recordings, or for readers of Beckett, Ionesco, Kafka, etc. No quirky pop songs, but perfectly good modern classical music."