Felt – Catalogue

Lawrence Hayward’s plan to release 10 albums in 10 years began timorously: the first two Felt albums?Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty and The Splendour Of Fear ?are dominated by Maurice Deebank’s guitar jangle; pretty, but aimless. The Strange Idols Pattern And Other Short Stories and the Cocteau-assisted Ignite The Seven Cannons are more focused, revealing Lawrence had a pop sensibility as well as an aesthetic one. After Deebank left in 1986, a short instrumental set-Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads To Death ?was followed by their best, Forever Breathes The Lonely Word Lawrence’s opulent melancholy finding fruition. Poem Of The River continues in the same vein, with organist Martin Duffy (later of Primal Scream) increasingly prominent. The Pictorial Jackson Review is dominated by a long piano instrumental by him, while Train Above The City is an entire album of tinkling cocktail jazz to which Lawrence only contributed the titles. The final masterpiece from 1989, Me And A Monkey On The Moon , is more conventional?in places it even rocks?though the Brum-centric “Mobile Shack” hints at the confessional novelty rock that would occupy Lawrence through the ’90s with Denim.