Cross My Heat

Description

Cross My Heat is an ambient album by the British born poet and singer/songwriter Steve Scott, independently released by Semionaut Music in October 2017. All tracks performed and assembled by Steve Scott from 2009 to 2017. The album was recorded and mixed by Jimmy Ward and Jason Cambell at Studio W in Sacramento, California. Mastered by Michael Roe of The 77’s fame. Difficult to categorize, these nine pieces blend Steve’s penchant for life-reflecting prose and ethno-electronica.

Steve Scott was always an artist who followed his muse, and it almost always was his undoing. More a poet than a conventional pop star, he nonetheless recorded fantastic rock songs in the 1980s, mostly backed by the band The Seventy Sevens, sometimes recorded by the producer Charlie Peacock who would be recognized later on as the writer of Amy Grant’s «Every Heartbeat» and producer for The Civil Wars. Scott had a tense, powerful new wave sound that sat perfectly next to the nerviness of artists like Simple Minds and The Call. A big distribution deal between his label Exit Records and A&M Records didn’t pan out. Tracks appeared eventually on the compilations Magnificent Obsession and the rightly beloved Lost Horizon.

Forsaking the pop sound that had forsaken him first, he released The Butterfly Effect in 1992, a hypnotic combination of spoken-word poetry and ambient synths. We Dreamt That We Were Strangers and Crossing The Boundaries followed after in the same vein. All these are artistic achievements for those who have minds open enough to accept them, but are still far too esoteric for those who just want to dance.

Nearly 20 years after his last release of new material, Scott returns with ‘Cross My Heat’ (word exchange intended). It is, once again, Scott’s thoughtful poetry set above field recordings, found sounds, and creative muckery of his old pop past. All the old caveats apply, that his work might be too cerebral, too artsy for general consumption, but I want to push back against those easy dismissals.

Even though the nine tracks on ‘Cross My Heat’ are poems, Scott is a poet with something to say, often approaching his work as a field reporter with a gift for the language rather than a Saturday night open-mic slammer.

My conundrum as a reviewer is that it is much harder to classify the recording enough to make it crystallize in your mind, much less entice you to give it a try. It has no beat. You can’t dance to it. But Scott’s voice, super-clear with his British accent still in play, is eminently listenable and never comes across as a sleep aid, as one might presume a poetry recording to be. Much as a good song will do something to you and for you, even if it does not make your body move, so too do Scott’s performances here.

I guess, in this case, you’ll have to trust me. For those who are even slightly intrigued by the previous, admittedly haphazard description, ‘Cross My Heat’ is recommended. [Dw. Dunphy, PopDose, February 19, 2018]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/cross-my-heat/1276846548)

CD tracklist:

01. Perhaps We Are The Dream – 3:44
02. With Any Luck – 3:37
03. Speak – 3:20
04. How Many Words For Sorrow? – 7:45
05. The Gift Of Tears – 8:32
06. Watching For Wings – 7:25
07. The Eclipse – 5:32
08. The Altar At Isenheim – 11:32
09. Lilias – 7:53

Note: Available at Bandcamp: https://stevescottpoet.bandcamp.com/album/hsal-38-cross-my-heat
https://hardingstreet.bandcamp.com/album/hsal-38-cross-my-heat