Wednesday, February 03, 2010

1069 - Mojo 71. The Left Banke - Walk Away Renée/Pretty Ballerina (1967)


















Track Listing

1. Pretty Ballerina
2. She May Call You up Tonight
3. Barterers and Their Wives
4. I've Got Something on My Mind
5. Let Go of You Girl
6. Evening Gown
7. Walk Away Renée
8. What Do You Know
9. Shadows Breaking over my Head
10. I Haven't Got the Nerve
11. Lazy Day

Review

There are these moments in every list where you make an amazing discovery of something you haven't even heard about. The Left Banke is one of those precious few moments. An album so original and so full or great tracks that I had decided it would be a 10 before I finished listening to the first track.

Well, I have to admit that the first track is probably the best one, although it has some competition from Walk Away Renée. But even if none of those tracks was in this album it would still get a 10. That's just how good it is.

The Left Banke are the first band to be baptised with the epithet "Baroque-rock", and even if that is a misleading name it bears out the complexity and beauty of the arrangements of the tracks. They sound ahead of their time by some years but more importantly they sound timeless. There are moments here that heard in isolation would be hard to pin-point chronologically. Amazing stuff indeed.

Track Highlights

1. Pretty Ballerina
2. Walk Away Renée
3. Lazy Day
4. She May Call You Up Tonight

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

This album has never been available on compact disc, and the LP itself has been out of print since the early 1980s but all the tracks of the album can be found on the There's Gonna Be a Storm: The Complete Recordings 1966-1969 compilation.

Walk Away Renée:

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