The Marshall Suite

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The Marshall Suite
The Marshall Suite cover
Studio album by The Fall
Released 12 October 1999
Recorded ???
Genre Rock
Length 39:27
Label Artful
Producer Mark E Smith, Steve Hitchcock and Bernard MacMahon
Professional reviews
The Fall chronology
Levitate
(1997)		 The Marshall Suite
(1999)		 Live 1977
(2000)

The Marshall Suite is a 1999 LP by The Fall, which builds on the techno-influenced beats of its predecessor Levitate (1997), while also returning to a more rockabilly influenced sound reminiscent of earlier Fall line-ups. The end result are songs like the primitive, catchy "Touch Sensitive", and the strange, complex, thumping jungle beats of "Crying Marshall" occurring in equal measure. The album is currently out of print.

The Marshall Suite was made immediately after a scandal during an American tour during which Mark E. Smith had an onstage fight with members of the band and was arrested following an altercation with keyboard player Julia Nagle. While the remaining band members quit and returned to England, leaving Smith in a New York jail, Nagle chose to stay in the band, helping to assemble a new line-up of the group. This new line-up was still taking shape during the recording of the album - the album features two different bassists and a drummer left before recording could begin - and as such it is something of a patchwork. Out of 13 tracks, "On My Own" is a reworking of the previous album's "Everybody But Myself", 3 tracks are covers, two are sound collages and "The Crying Marshal" is a remix by producer Steven Hitchcock of a Smith collaboration with the Filthy Three (Real Life of the Crying Marshal). Two songs use some of the same lyrics (a 14th track, Tom Ragazzi - a reprise of Anecdotes - was included on the vinyl version). Nevertheless, the album was well received.

Around the time of release, rumours circulated that The Marshall Suite was a concept album about "The Crying Marshall". Smith stopped short of denying this, telling The Wire that I thought it would be good to do it as the story of his life, a themed LP, with a thread running through it. It's such an unhip thing to do. An unpublished section of the interview, later placed on the magazine's website, suggested Smith was not yet finished with his creation: I do want to continue the Marshall theme, develop it. Maybe a five sided thing next, the return of the Marshall. [1]. However, he does not appear to have returned to the theme on any subsequent Fall album.

An edit of the album's opening track "Touch Sensitive" was used in the UK as a soundtrack to an advert for the Vauxhall Corsa [2].

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Touch Sensitive" (Nagle, Smith) – 3:16
  2. "F-'Oldin' Money" (Tommy Blake) – 2:45
  3. "Shake-Off" (Tom Head, Hitchcock, Nagle, Karen Leatham, Smith) – 3:03
  4. "Bound" (Smith, Wilson Brothers) – 3:19
  5. "This Perfect Day" (Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper) – 2:10
  6. "(Jung Nev's) Antidotes" (Wilding, Hitchcock, Smith) – 3:27
  7. "Inevitable" (Head, Leatham, Nagle, Smith) – 3:51
  8. "Anecdotes+Antidotes in B#" (Nagle, Smith) – 2:59
  9. "Early Life of Crying Marshal" (Hitchcock) – 0:50
  10. "Crying Marshal" (Hitchcock, Smith, others) – 4:39
  11. "Birthday Song" (Nagle, Smith) – 3:38
  12. "Mad. Men-Eng, Dog" (Spencer Marsden, Nagle, Smith) – 2:18
  13. "On My Own" (Nagle, Smith, Wolstencroft) – 3:12
  14. "Tom Raggazzi (Finale)"* [Head, Nagle, Smith] – 2.12

* track is exclusive to the LP edition

[edit] Personnel

[edit] External links

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