Airport 5: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks

Airport 5: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks

2001

Fading Captain Series

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Burns Carpenter, Man of Science  2. Total Exposure  3. Subatomic Rain  4. One More  5. Mission Experiences  6.The Cost of Shipping Cattle  7. Circle of Trim  8. War & Wedding  9. Stifled Man Casino  10. Up the Nails  11. Tomorrow You May Rise  12. Feathering Clueless (The Exotic Freebird)  13. Mansfield on the Sky  14. White Car Creek  15. Remain Lodging (at Airport 5)



Fading Captain Series #13. We left off on FCS # 6 (which was the "Suitcase" box-set). I don't own #'s 7-12, which are: #7 "Briefcase" (an abridged version of "Suitcase"),  #8 "Big Trouble" by the Hazzard Hotrods (Pollard doing live, generic bar-rock which I'm not especially interested in), #9 "Speedtraps for the Bee Kingdom" mini-album by  Howling Wolf Orchestra (which I've never seen nor heard),  #10 GBV"s "Daredevil Stamp Collector EP (which is basically the "Hold One Hope" Ep with a couple of tracks swapped out (CURSE YOU FOR NOT PUTTING "PERFECT THIS TIME" ON "HOLD ON HOPE"!!), #11 Airport 5's "Total Exposure" single (which we'll cover when we get to the "Selective Service" album) #12 

I've actually covered this one before, back in the early days of this blog, when I used to do one (utterly useless) post a day rather than one post every 6 months. Since this is the next album in the Robert Pollard chronology, I figured I'd take the coward's way out and just touch up the old entry a bit and repost it. There. I can hibernate until next winter:

Airport 5 was a "record-by-mail" project (there's going to be a few of these coming up) between Pollard and former band-mate Tobin Sprout, which was a pretty big deal for us GBV fanatics at the time. I remember running to the record store and buying this the day it came out, practically salivating at the thought of the Beatles-y, Who-sy, Big Star-ish power-pop that must lie within...

Except in a few select cases that isn't exactly what I got. Most of the record is odd, abstract and brooding. Robert Pollard is at his most oblique, and Tobin Sprout is at his moodiest.  I can't quite say I was disappointed with it, because by this point, I fully realized that Robert Pollard albums do usually take a bit of time to fully reveal their charms. I did eventually get used to it and I ended up enjoying this quite a bit.

Really, only two songs jumped out at me on those first couple of listens. In particular, "Stifled Man Casino," which sports a Pollard chorus so potent, that I had no choice but to buy the 100 albums that followed. It's just a pure, uncut shot of that old classic-lineup GBV that I didn't realize I was missing until I heard it again. Shaky, unsteady, triumphant. The acoustic "Total Exposure" comes pretty close to recapturing the greatness too, with a memorably slippery bassline and a sticky campfire chorus. 

And that's about it for the big pop songs. The rest of the record is emotionally diffuse, dark post-rock...Kind of an update of Wire's "154."  I mean, listen to those nervy vocals on "Subatomic Rain." Bizarre. And check out those lyrics on "The Cost of Shipping Cattle:"

"The thorn removed itself, and grew into a stake, impaled itself into a tree,which became flesh and lurched toward the moon... Did he or did he not, use shocking equipment to make you happy?? "

Fucking bizarre! The record actually has a strong second half with "War & Wedding" and "Circle of Trim" which would come this close to being fine pop if they weren't so goddamn askew. "Mansfield in the Sky" is a slow-motion beauty, with its wide swaths of echoed guitar and Pollard sounding especially stunned and awed.It really is evocative of a snowy day in a  desolate midwestern locale. I'm sorry I moved to Arizona before I heard this, because I would have loved to listen to this driving around in a Michigan snowstorm. 

Ultimately, "Tower in the Fountain of Sparks" isn't my favorite Pollard or Sprout release by a long shot but I have to admit it's 100% successful in what it's aiming for. The duo aren't trying to recapture the kaleidoscopic hook-scape of "Bee Thousand" or "Alien Lanes." They're just trying to creep us out and make our blood freeze. It just so happens I value hooks over surreal eeriness. So sue me...

Here are the updated rankings. I'm actually going to rank "Tower in the Fountain of Sparks" pretty low. I actually really enjoy its dreary atmospherics, but to be brutally honest I'd probably bop along to the sunny, perfect pop of "Sandbox" than this. But when the right mood hits and it's a cold, drizzy night and I'm walking the empty streets with my headphones on, it probably ranks somewhere around  #16 (Mag Earwhig!). So I put it at number 22 but it does sometimes appear as a phantom #16. Sheesh. These rankings are getting weird...

1. Guided by Voices: Alien Lanes

2. Guided by Voices: Isolation Drills

3. Robert Pollard With Doug Gillard:Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department

4. Guided by Voices: Bee Thousand

5.Guided by Voices: Under the Bushes, Under the Stars

6. Guided by Voices: Propeller

7. Tobin Sprout: Moonflower Plastic (Welcome to My Wigwam)

8. Robert Pollard: Waved Out

9. Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy

10. Guided by Voices: Do the Collapse

11. Guided by Voices: Same Place the Fly Got Smashed

12. Robert Pollard: Kid Marine

13. Guided by Voices: Tonics and Twisted Chasers

14 Guided by Voices: Sunfish Holy Breakfast

15. Robert Pollard: Not In My Airforce

16. Guided by Voices: Mag Earwhig!

17. Tobin Sprout: Let's Welcome the Circus People

18. Guided by Voices: King Shit and the Golden Boys

19. Guided by Voices: Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia

20. Guided by Voices: Vampire on Titus

21. Guided by Voices: Sandbox

22. Airport 5: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks

23. Guided by Voices: Forever Since Breakfast

24. Guided by Voices: Devil Between My Toes 
25. Nightwalker: In Shop We Build Electric Chairs: Professional Music by Nightwalker