spacefrog's Full Review: Fuck Your Dreams, This Is Heaven by Original Sound...
**** your dreams, this is heaven is the quite obscure original soundtrack of a video-film I never managed to see. I heard about this album back in the eighties, when it was released. I was listening to the British Forces Broadcasting Services program Nightflight, presented by Alan Bangs. Mister Bangs played the cover version of Venus in Furs and referred to the album as EXPLETIVE your dreams, this is heaven. The cover version sounded interesting, and since I was already interested in Tuxedomoon related projects, I decided to buy the vinyl copy right away. I never regretted my choice although this album is certainly not one of the albums every person interested in Tuxedomoon should own.
In fact, **** your dreams, this is heaven cannot even be considered as a genuine Tuxedomoon release, since four of the tracks are performed by the Tuxedomoon members Steven Brown, Peter Principle and Bruce Geduldig and not by Tuxedomoon. Besides that, the remaining five tracks have been recorded by Minimal Compact, Niki Mono and various Minimal Compact and Tuxedomoon collaborators.
All songs except Marathon are cover versions, and they are definitely not as radical as Tuxedomoon's Marvin Gaye or Cole Porter covers. Anyway, for me the most interesting aspect of this album lies in the fact that a band from Israel (Minimal Compact) and various members and collaborators of a band from San Francisco (Tuxedomoon), were working in Europe on a common project instead of throwing together some "tribute" covers.
The whole soundtrack is dedicated to Syd Barret, but there are only three Syd Barrett/Pink Floyd covers (four if you count the CD bonus track). I consider No Man's Land as the greatest achievement of this album, since Peter Principle manages to reveal all the hidden beauty of this Syd Barrett song from The Madcap Laughs with a complex arrangement and great singing. At least, that is my point of view, since the poor arrangement and production of the original album together with Syd Barrett's growing inability to sing his own songs always make me feel sick after a few minutes.
I would qualify Minimal Compact's cover of Late Night as interesting. Samy Birnbach does have an interesting dark voice, but not quite the necessary technique to sing this song. Winston Tong's rendition of this song appears to be quite stripped bare and more different from the original version, but that is about all I can say about it, since this track is absent on my vinyl version.
The Niki Mono / Nikolas Klau cover version of Flaming contains some great guitar play from François Goethals, but the singing and the arrangement are a bit less convincing. At the same time, I guess the sheer brilliance of this track makes it more difficult to cover it.
How about the two Velvet Underground covers? I've already mentioned Venus in Furs. As you will probably know, the track is taken from the very well known "banana" album with Nico, produced by Andy Warhol. Once again, it should be almost impossible to do better than the original, so you can't really blame Nikolas Klau, Steven Brown and Peter Principle for this honorable try. The instrumentation and especially Steven Brown's clarinet part is quite original, but I don't really dig that this version starts almost laid back and ends with yells and whip sounds.
Ocean on the other hand, could easily have been left away. This cover version is lacking originality, just like the cover of Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot".
As far as the individual tracks are concerned I cannot quite recommend **** your dreams, this is heaven, not even to fans of Tuxedomoon or of Pink Floyd related cover versions. On the other hand, it is interesting to see how this group of musicians has managed to take material from different sources and to make it sound as if it were their own material.
Track listing:
1. Still I'm Sad - Minimal Compact [Originally recorded by The Yardbirds]
2. Flaming - Niki Mono/Nikolas Klau [Originally recorded by Pink Floyd]
3. No Man's Land - Peter Principle [Originally recorded by Syd Barrett]
4. Marathon - Niki Mono/Minimal Compact
5. Late Night - Minimal Compact [Originally recorded by Syd Barrett]
6. Venus In Furs - Nikolas Klau/Steven Brown/Peter Principle [Originally recorded by Velvet Underground]
7. Dancing Barefoot - Niki Mono/Berry Sakharof [Originally recorded by Patti Smith]
8. Coming Back To Me - Steven Brown [Originally recorded by Jefferson Airplane]
9. Ocean - Bruce Geduldig/Peter Principle [Originally recorded by Velvet Underground]
10. Late Night - Winston Tong [Originally recorded by Syd Barrett] (CD bonus track)
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