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Most retrospection of the '80s tends to focus on the prevalence
of the neo-capitalist ideology of happiness through materialist-consumption-to-excess.
The retrospection inevitably leads to a condemnation of our own
self-absorptions. We all collectively shake our heads and slap
ourselves on the wrists. Bad us. Bad. Particularly, we have these
unpleasant reminders of consumption to excess: a generation of
the spectacularly obese, social misfits raised by television and
video games because dad AND mom had to work 60+ hours a week to
afford the better house, better car, better stereo, etc. Left
to their own devices, the latch key kids discovered the same drugs
that the parents did, discovered the hard societal realities created
by not knowing anything about sex but having ample, unsupervised
opportunity to figure it out with the girl next door…
But when Grand Design pops into the changer, (remember,
it's really a cassette) you can forget that the '90s and '00s
ever existed; it's still 1984, and cocaine isn't a problem, it's
a problem solver. The kids are watching the Disney channel and
not soft-core porn on Skin-emax. And you're out for a night on
the town in a stretch limo loaded with every substance needed
for a little chemical imbalancing act, hopping from club to club
with the sole purpose of satisfying those gathering urges. We
(at Hybrid) are starting to see a swell of the New New Wave of
synth-pop, and Layton's Grand Design is near the
crest. The instrumentation, coded though it is, is as lush as
the upholstery of that stretch limo, and the vocals as dreamy
as the hazy memories imparted by those trivial, not-yet-addictive
indulgences. Layton takes advantage of modern equipment and methods
to show us how the future of music was supposed to be, and nothing
seems out of place in this retro-visitation.
Paul Layton, in some of the interviews I've read, appears
to have some of the hallmarks of perfectionism. Perfectionism
is best when it manifests itself as a careful and measured attention
to detail, and worst when it's an infinite recursion of obsessive-compulsive
behavior. (Ever spend the entire day you were supposed to clean
the house focused on that one kitchen drawer filled with miscellaneous
crap?) Fortunately, Layton either is of the careful, measured
variety, or trusts someone else enough to keep him from working
his material to death. This could have been over-produced, too
period, or so over-wrought as to be self-parodical, and it could
have been so, so easily. Someone knew when it was time to stop
painting. I won't say it's "perfect," because in light
of what I've just written, that word's meaning just isn't as austere
as it used to be. Instead, I'll just say that the album, at just
the right time, stops attempting to achieve that ideal of infinite
recursion.
-JD
Track Listing:
1. <c-june>
2. <hope's all there is>
3. <roundagon>
4. <milky way>
5. <venus>
6. <morning glory>
7. <roundagon/lara mix>
8. <daze of my lives>
9. <confessions of a lush>
10. <rainbows & u>
11. <hope's all there is> (static revenger mix)
Special bonus material: roundagon video
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