Amp - All of Yesterday Tomorrow

  by Jon Rogers

published: 9 / 7 / 2007

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Review

Like Tom Waits’ Orphans three CD set, 'All of Yesterday Tomorrow' collects up Amp’s odds and sods, outtakes, singles and hard to find tracks and spans their entire career. Sprawling over three CDs this collection of 38 tracks gathers up recordings made by the experimental collective for labels such as Kranky, Darla and Wurlitzer Jukebox. 'All of Yesterday Tomorrow' gives a concise – well, as concise as a triple album can be – portrait of the group that has at its core Richard Amp and singer Karine Charff. There are all the group’s 10 singles that appeared on the 'Passé Present' collection, outtakes, alternate versions and a whole host of little gems to keep your attention. The album does highlight the group’s extensive range of influences: from the white noise of bands like My Bloody Valentine, the minimalism of avant-garde composers like Terry Riley and Steve Reich, trip-hop, ambient and electronica. There’s even the odd surprising cover with the traditional 'Scarborough Fair', a version of Spacemen 3’s 'So Hot (Wash Away All of My Tears)' and the Silver Apples’ 'Seagreen Serenade'. Since 1992 the group has always managed to invariably dig out something of interest. Not that they’ve managed to pull off everything. 'Baudelaire' stems from a proposed ep that was never finished and consisted of setting some of rebel French poet Charles Baudelaire’s verse to music. Not a wise move and probably best it didn’t see the light of day. For the most part you have to admire their ambition. At a time when a “indie” is a tag largely denoting little more than corporate-manufactured, stylised boy bands who know how to plug in a guitar, Amp is a large step away from that producing something of substance.

Track Listing:-

1 Sketch A Star
2 Remember
3 Melatonin Red
4 Alightfarout
5 There She Goes
6 Walking A Line
7 Small Light
8 Lutin
9 ICU
10 Frise
11 Strangely Charming Quark
12 Fine Day
13 Beyond
14 Get There
15 Silencer
16 Standing In The Darkest Corner Of The Room
17 Le Petit Chat
18 Ipso Factum
19 Lutin2
20 Le Revenant
21 Left It (Too Late)
22 Miles'N
23 Noir Et Noir
24 Baudelaire
25 Ombres
26 Je Veux
27 Moon Tree
28 Scarborough Fair
29 Seagreen Serenades
30 So Hot (Wash Away All Of My Tears)
31 Televisionface
32 Watchin'
33 Shadowfall
34 Untitled Demo (Demo Of Tomorrow)
35 Yonder
36 Untitled (Bow)
37 Wild Wine Gaze
38 When You Have Love