New Music From Andreas Dorau, Opal
Andreas Dorau
Das Wesentliche
(Tapete)
This writer remembers first trying to describe Andreas Dorau, and the best he could come up with at the time was if an adult version of the annoyingly voiced egghead Urkel, from the '90s TV show “Family Matters”, was a German dance-pop star.
It sounds like the set-up for some made-up Ranier Wolfcastle non-comedy, alongside “Help! My Son Is a Nerd”, but it’s no fabrication.
Dorau’s mousey tenor, pointedly not-suave voice probably sounds to most people like some kind of novelty act, but here’s the thing: his songs are absolutely irresistible, catchy and jubilant pop tunes that transcend novelty.
Dorau’s new album, Das Wesentliche (“The Essential”), shows that he’s nowhere close to losing steam in his 38-year career. After bursting onto the scene with the goofy and cute 1981 new-wave pop hit “Fred vom Jupiter”, released when he was a mere teen, he continues to bring energy in bursts.
Many of the tracks on the new album are short and to-the-point, with several clocking in under the two-minute mark, possibly cutting the pop song down to “the essential”.
In his catalog, Dorau has mainly focused on pop and dance music, providing his inspired touch and going beyond the generic monotony that Euro-dance music can often wallow in.
However, Das Wesentliche pushes slightly away from the recipes that drove his best received tracks, such as “Girls in Love” and “Stoned Faces Don’t Lie”, where Dorau’s voice offers a foil to another singer’s vocal presence or sample.
The one-two combo of “Menschen Tragen Graue Hüte” (“People Wearing Gray Hats”) and “Wieso” recall the vocal harmonies and bouncy melodies of the Beach Boys, while “Du Bist Eine Insel” (“You Are an Island”) has a comforting take on the Motown sound, using synth washes behind a Four Tops-esque core.
It’s not all '60s pop throwbacks—there’s the minimal techno track “Naiv”, the easy-going cowboy campfire song (with subtle synths and slide guitar) “Gebrauchtes Herz”, the spry, tight outburst “Instant Magic” and more disarming pop numbers.
Newcomers to Andreas Dorau may by baffled by the disconnect between his unusual voice and the perky, confident songs, but after a while, they seem rightfully inseparable in the quest for pop perfection.
Opal
Early Recordings
(Salley Gardens)
This writer remembers when he was a teenager who would frequently skip lunch and use his lunch money to purchase music, making it a literally unhealthy obsession. He is also constantly reminded that music is devalued nowadays, because the barriers to receive it have been broken down, simply because they can be broken down, without regards to ethics or legality or even basic notions of gratitude.
In a roundabout way, this brings us to the new reissue of Opal’s 1989 collection Early Recordings, which has been out-of-print for three decades during which it exchanged hands on eBay for extravagant prices and remained in obscurity.
Opal was one of the key west-coast Paisley Underground bands of the '80s, alongside groups like The Bangles, The Three O’Clock and The Rain Parade, which generally gravitated toward '60s classic and psychedelic rock and pop; the scene was influential to artists including Prince—his Paisley Park label being a hat-tip to the Paisley Underground.
Guitarist David Roback (formerly of The Rain Parade) and singer Kendra Smith (formerly of The Dream Syndicate) were Opal’s main songwriters. After Smith departed Opal, vocalist Hope Sandoval joined the band, which changed its name to Mazzy Star while continuing in the same vein and had the breakout hit “Fade Into You”.
Roback, Smith and drummer Keith Mitchell first used the name Clay Allison, then went by their real names and finally settled on the band name Opal, and Early Recordings covers this initial mid-'80s period of the band with EP releases Fell from the Sun and Northern Line plus rarities.
This new reissue includes the original CD’s bonus track “Hear the Wind Blow” plus four additional bonus songs: “I Called Erin”, “Don’t Stop the Train”, “Sailing Boats”, and an alternate version of the roadhouse blues tune “Empty Bottles”, fitting in nicely with the styles of the other Early Recordings tracks.
It’s a compelling collection that ambles between easygoing, woozy psych/garage rock guitar timbres, gentle country-rock (“My Only Friend”), bluesy slide-guitar-ridden tunes (“She’s a Diamond”) and a stunning, minimal simplicity (“All Souls”). Without aping styles, various acts are evoked like Neil Young, early Pink Floyd (with the expansive, organ-driven “Lullabye”) and even The Doors, whose “The End” lends a vibe to “Grains of Sand” with an air of wandering mystery.
Mazzy Star fans should check Opal out, although Smith’s singing style—summoning a sort of forest earth goddess spirit with her pure, unadorned (and a bit solemn) voice—marks the greatest difference between the two acts.
After this material, Opal recorded its sole proper full-length album, Happy Nightmare Baby, which leans more in the slow-throb rock direction with a prominent T. Rex influence.
So a valid question is, why does this reissue—only released on CD, not digitally nor part of the vinyl (or cassette!) revival—even matter in 2019?
This critic can only attempt to describe the feeling of both pure joy and contentment when he played this CD a few days ago, after waiting for this moment over 25 years (while refusing to pay collector prices) and being unsatisfied with pirated MP3 downloads or low-fidelity YouTube uploads.
It’s an album that deserves a proper reissue, and it has never sounded better to these ears, worth both the effort (since it’s not officially on streaming services) and the wait.