Bete Noire Remastered Import by Bryan Ferry

Bete Noire Remastered Import

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Bete Noire Remastered Import

Reader Reviews
Bryan Ferry is hidden by his own shadow. He was the front man for Roxy Music and remains so whenever the band regroups. But he has been issuing solo albums since almost the beginning of his Roxy career. Initially, these were seen as side projects, where he could explore his love of (and peculiar take on) pop standards, or subsequently where he could present more American-style rock songs and arrangements. When Roxy Music finally drifted off into Avalon, Ferry made solo albums that continued to pursue diverse agendas -- sometimes rocking, sometimes Roxy-like, sometimes paying tribute to the compositions of songwriters from Richard Rodgers to Bob Dylan. 1987's "Bete Noire," all of it written or co-written by Ferry, is one that deserves much more attention, but it is among the hardest to find. Even the major downloading services don't include it. It is seen as a follow-up to "Boys and Girls," but it is, in my view, far superior. Its more muscular rhythms recall the hard-disco sound he brought to Roxy Music with "Love is the Drug" and the album "Manifesto." But the dreaminess of the melodies and musical arrangements resemble "Avalon"'s excursions into shimmmering romanticism and spacy fantasies. The two strands tied together are irresistable. Ferry's best music is assembled carefully, like an abstract painting, everything for effect, mood and color. Here, even the lyrics have a curiously atmospheric quality, in which cliches and movie titles swirl around to convey feelings without drawing you in to a particular story or point of view. This is music of the night, and music of nights recollected half in dreams. The title cut, the final song on the album, connects the electronic, amplified music that dominates the previous eight songs with a much longer tradition of late-night romantic dreaminess. The instrumentation on this one song is mostly accordions, violins and percussion, and you could imagine hearing this played in a French or Italian cafe. What he demonstrates is that, the music has changed in our era, but only on the surface, new instruments in service of the old heartbreaks, nostalgia and imaginined worlds far away.

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