The Walker Brothers - Nite Flights (1978)

I'm not sure what exactly was the catalyst that finally ended Scott Walker's "wilderness years", in which he'd produced no new songs in seven years, and in such spectacular fashion.  It's generally written that he'd been coasting through an unhappy state of contractual affairs, then reunited with the Walker Brothers at his lowest creative ebb.  By the time the trio put together their third album post-reunion, they apparently saw which way the wind was blowing for the GTO label and went for broke.  But if Gary Leeds and John Maus turned in a fairly decent two/four songs each, Scott Engel's were suddenly on another planet altogether.

The first 16 minutes of Nite Flights, which were also released as an EP, are in hindsight the obvious curtain-raiser to Scott Walker's late solo career, in which each album reached further into the abyss.  Wonder what on earth anyone who was listening in 1978 thought.  Kicking off with discordant guitar blasts and blistering solos between the verses, Shutout is just the beginning of the much more abstract approach to lyrics that Walker had adopted - there's even a sly wink to Brion Gysin at the start of the second verse.  Fat Mama Kick takes inspiration from French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy against a similarly harsh background.  Both fade out just as they seem to be getting going, but the album's title track is longer and more electronically tinged, with clear inspiration from Bowie (which wouldn't just go one way).  Then there's The Electrician.

How do you follow a six-minute dark ambient (with an orchestral middle section) horror-story about CIA torture?  Gary Leeds has the unfortunate task, and finishes the first side of the album with the respectable Death Of Romance.  Den Haague is even better, with neat production touches.  By the time you get to John Maus' songs that close the album, though, it's impossible to escape the fact that nothing could touch the sheer otherwordly genius of the first four tracks.

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Scott Walker at SGTG:
Climate Of Hunter
Tilt
Soused