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Bryan Ferry and Amelia Barratt: Loose Talk review | Alexis Petridis’ album of the week
Veering from the standard heritage-artist playbook, Ferry pairs unearthed demos from across his career with cool narration from Barratt, to beautiful, unsettling effect
Florist drifts moodily along; the more strident closing title track boasts an appropriately end-credits feel (and it opens with a clatter of drum-machine handclaps, a sound so familiar from 80s pop, and so completely absent from it in more recent years, it has a weirdly Proustian effect). There are certainly points where Ferry’s contributions fade into the realm of the characterless – Demolition or Florist could be the work of anyone – but Loose Talk is liberally studded with genuinely haunting moments, frequently when the old demos yield a snatch of vocal, as on Landscape or Cowboy Hat. There’s something quite Ferry-esque about the vengeful siren of Stand Near Me, applying perfume before exacting some nameless retribution, or the narrator of Big Things, watching a barman flame an orange peel, a distraction from the sight of the bar’s “dreadful carpet”.
Or read this on The Guardian
