Review Revue: Ambitious Lovers - Greed

Arto Lindsay, the guitaring/singing half of the art-pop duo Ambitious Lovers, is one of my favorite - and one of the most underrated - musical artists of the late 20th century (he has gone relatively quiet in the past decade or so, although some recent posts on his facebook page instill hopes that he's recording some exciting new work with an exciting group of musicians). Seriously, go dig into his solo catalog if you haven't; O Corpu Sutil, Mundo Civilizado, Noon Chill, and The Prize are mixtape go-tos for me, but it's all great. (Side note: Hat tip to Beauty Pill for covering "The Prize" on their near-perfect 2015 album Beauty Pill Describes Things as They Are. I knew Chad Clark and I were soulmates when he covered Arto Lindsay and Lungfish on the same album.)

For some reason - I'll blame the relative difficulty of just listening to whatever you want in the '90s - I never really went back and dug into Ambitious Lovers' catalog beyond their contribution to Elektra's splendid Rubaiyat compilation, a cover of Fred Neil's "A Little Bit of Rain" (no room to go into it, but Fred Neil! - another fantastic confluence), which I'm trying to make up for now. They seem to have split the difference between the aggressively odd work of Lindsay's previous band, no-wave weirdos DNA, and his later solo work, which is incredibly listenable but no less artful. In short, perfect fodder for college radio!

"A great disc."

"Good strong. M."

"Or H with white dots." ["H" = heavy rotation; "M" = medium; white dots were used for things that were too commercial-radio to play on KCMU.]

"Puhleese."

"'King'... manipulative lover lyrics."

"I like this less & less the more I hear it. Pop + jazz = not my favorite combo..."

"From ambient to eclectic. This record travels. Some very interesting jazzy numbers, some funky, dance. Shop around. Look on back for list of musicians."

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Great!"

"H, puh-leeze?"

"'Quasi You' is totally massive!"