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R.E.M.: Fables of the Reconstruction

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: I.R.S. Records
Released: 1985.06.10
Time:
 39:44
Category: Alternative Rock
Producer(s): Joe Boyd
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.remhq.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Feeling Gravitys Pull (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 4:51
[2] Maps and Legends (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:10
[3] Driver 8 (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:23
[4] Life and How to Live It (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 4:06
[5] Old Man Kensey (J.Ayers/B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 4:08
[6] Cant Get There from Here (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:39
[7] Green Grow the Rushes (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:46
[8] Kohoutek (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:18
[9] Auctioneer (Another Engine) (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 2:44
[10] Good Advices (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:30
[11] Wendell Gee (B.Perry/P.Buck/M.Mills/M.Stipe) - 3:01

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Michael Stipe - Lead Vocals
Mike Mills - Bass Guitar, Piano, Vocals
Peter Buck - Guitar, Banjo, Harmonica
Bill Berry - Drums, Vocals

Camilla Brunt - Violin on [1]
Philippa Ibbotson - Violin on [1]
David Newby - Cello on [1]
David Bitelli - Tenor & Baritone Saxophone on [6]
Jim Dvořák - Trumpet on [6]
Peter Thomas - Tenor Saxophone on [6]

Joe Boyd - Producer
Berry Clempson - Engineer
Tony Harris - Engineer
Jerry Boys - Enginee
Jack Skinner - Mastering
M. K. Johnston - Photography & Art

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Produced and Engineered at Livingston Studios, London, N22, March 1985. Mastered at Sterling Sound.



For their third album, R.E.M. made a conscious effort to break from the traditions Murmur and Reckoning established, electing to record in England with legendary folk-rock producer Joe Boyd. For a variety of reasons, the sessions were difficult, and that tension is apparent throughout Fables of the Reconstruction. A dark, moody rumination on American folk - not only the music, but its myths - Fables is creepy, rustic psychedelic folk, filled with eerie sonic textures. Some light breaks through occasionally, such as the ridiculous collegiate blue-eyed soul of "Can't Get There From Here," but the group's trademark ringing guitars and cryptic lyrics have grown sinister, giving even sing-alongs like "Driver 8" an ominous edge. Fables is more inconsistent than its two predecessors, but the group does demonstrate considerable musical growth, particularly in how perfectly it evokes the strange rural legends of the South. And many of the songs on the record - including "Feeling Gravitys Pull," "Maps and Legends," "Green Grow the Rushes," "Auctioneer (Another Engine)," and the previously mentioned pair - rank among the group's best.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide


 
These days we tend to think of music culture as being almost unreasonably fast-moving. Musicians, however, are generally not as productive as they once were. When R.E.M. were burning through a non-stop cycle of writing, recording, and touring in the 1980s, it was the industry norm. By 1985, the group was midway through the most productive period of its career, and had already released two instant classic albums within the span of 24 months for IRS Records. R.E.M. thrived on this pressure, and critical success seemed only to embolden them, resulting in a series of distinct, increasingly ambitious records that nudged them ever closer to the mainstream without sacrificing their character.

Fables of the Reconstruction, the third release in this astonishing reissue blitz, is the first to show any sign of strain from the band's relentless schedule. It's a great and inspired album, but not quite as consistent as Murmur or Reckoning, or other R.E.M. works to come down the line. Aside from the oddball lead single "Can't Get There From Here", which approximated southern funk via Peter Buck's chiming Rickenbacker chords, Fables is a dark and murky set with a textural palette close to the muted earth tones of its packaging. As the title suggests, it is their most "Southern" album, with a sound that evokes images of railroads, small towns, eccentric locals, oppressive humidity, and a vague sense of time slowing to a crawl. For a bunch of guys who were still new to life on the road, the specificity of setting makes a lot of sense - it's the homesick pride of people suddenly removed from their usual context.

Michael Stipe's lyrics, at this point just beginning to gel into deliberate themes after a few years of intuitive mumbling, are mainly concerned with imagining the inner lives of outsiders and recluses; men who have traded companionship for a life on their own terms. This fascination can tip into sentimentality - "Wendell Gee" may be the most syrupy R.E.M. tune - but the best of these songs bypass mawkishness and stress Stipe's identification with his subjects. "Life and How to Live It", an ecstatic rave-up based upon the life of a schizophrenic man who alternated his time between two sides of his house, showcases Stipe at his most spirited and unhinged.

Musically, Fables is a transitional work. Buck was still working within his jangle-pop style - "Driver 8" is basically the ultimate archetype of this aesthetic - but they'd begun to toy around with grander ambitions. "Feeling Gravity's Pull", the album's ominous opener, contrasts a grim, trebly lead guitar part reminiscent of Tom Verlaine with stately, cinematic strings and vivid lyrics detailing Stipe's dreamscape. "Can't Get There From Here" successfully integrates horns and funk grooves, and along with "Maps and Legends" further develops Mike Mills as a foil to Stipe on harmony vocals. Less ambitious cuts like "Green Grow the Rushes" and "Good Advices" are charming in their own right, straightforward in their simple, unfussy beauty. Fables is the end of the line for that particular strain of R.E.M. song - within a year, these guys would move on to making their own brand of arena rock on Lifes Rich Pageant, never to return to more intimate affairs.

This reissue includes a bonus disc of demos recorded in Athens before heading to London to track the songs with producer Joe Boyd. At this stage in the process, the songs were written but not entirely fleshed out. Though it is nice to hear songs such as "Driver 8" and "Auctioneer (Another Engine)" in a raw state, these demos are mainly a curiosity for hardcore fans. That said, comparing and contrasting the demos with the finished recordings makes an excellent case for Boyd as a producer. Since the band has mentioned in past interviews that the Fables sessions were stressful and difficult, Boyd has received a fair amount of negative criticism for his work on the album. This is unwarranted. The band have worked with better and more simpatico producers in their time, but Boyd did a fine job of finessing and polishing these tunes without getting in the way of the album's peculiar earthy vibe. "Can't Get There From Here" is the most dramatic example of Boyd's positive influence. The demo sounds awkward and confused as Stipe and Mills stumble over one another in the chorus, whereas the finished version runs smoothly, carried along by Buck's exceptionally crisp chords.

In the context of R.E.M.'s career, it's hard not to damn Fables of the Reconstruction with faint praise. It's not an obvious classic, but it certainly doesn't fall into the category of "lesser works." Fables is a fine album that has aged very well, and the simple fact that it is not on par with its two predecessors or further landmark records like Document and Automatic for the People is not a comment on its quality on its own. Ultimately, Fables is best enjoyed as something slightly off the beaten path, with a proudly eccentric style befitting its offbeat subjects.

Matthew Perpetua - July 14, 2010
© 2015 Pitchfork Media Inc.



One time, Jack Kerouac asked William Burroughs to read and react to something he'd written. Burroughs did so, and said he liked what he read. But that wasn't enough for Kerouac, who pressed: What do you specifically like about it? Burroughs replied that he didn't know what he liked about it, specifically. He just liked it, that's all.

Fables of the Reconstruction, the fourth record by R.E.M., invites similarly non-specific praise. One absorbs the sound of these songs, one by one, mood by mood, without being greatly concerned with precisely what they might be about. Too much close scrutiny — trying to comprehend singer Michael Stipe's often hazy diction and imposing an interpretive framework upon the few lyrics that can be sussed out — is a self-defeating and frustrating exercise, as a day's worth of listen-guess-replay-guess-again made clear to me. Better to just accept Stipe's dusky voice as an extraordinarily evocative instrument, perhaps the lead instrument in this band, since there are no soloists per se.

Though attempts at analysis will probably be futile, some stray fragment of a lyric — "It's a Man Ray kind of sky" or "When you greet a stranger/Look at her hands" — might set off all sorts of intellectual resonances. Because R.E.M. suggests instead of spells out, leaving you to guess at what tantalizing secrets they're keeping, they have amassed a substantial following among the kind of discriminating fans who spurn contemporary-hit radio and Music Television.

Their latest record finds R.E.M. taking a few giant steps away from the format of the previous three, which were all cut in North Carolina with producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon. Fables of the Reconstruction was made in England with Joe Boyd, the producer and creative midwife of some of the most stirring British folk records of the past few decades, by artists like Fairport Convention, Nick Drake and Richard and Linda Thompson. R.E.M.'s liaison with Boyd makes perfect sense. Rural England and the rural South — the band members are all Georgians — share a deep tradition of myth and mystery that's nurtured in the bond between man and land.

R.E.M. draws upon the more haunting aspects of the South for inspiration and subject matter. Though they never deal with history head-on, the title of their album betrays an interest in history or, more exactly, the effect of a historical event in shaping the peculiar culture of their region. Fables is not a concept album, but there is a contextual frame here — more so than on R.E.M.'s other records. Perhaps making this album in another country gave them the distance to see their own more clearly.

Besides being a kind of cultural overview, Fables of the Reconstruction unfolds as a series of observations sequenced to suggest a dialogue between extremes: tension and languor, momentum and inertia, the natural and the surreal, accessibility and impenetrability. The band — Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry — establishes mood and texture without resorting to needless studio histrionics. Joe Boyd's genius is that his influence is almost undetectable; Fables is as devoid of the fifth-member diversions of a producer as R.E.M.'s previous records.

They do, however, toss in the occasional stylistic curve ball or quirky embellishment to flesh out the details of a song. "Can't Get There from Here" finds the band augmented by a horn section, though the way it's used seems to mock the idea of the big-band flourish of old soul records. A banjo enters toward the end of "Wendell Gee," plucking its doleful way around Stipe's surreal, lachrymose fable about some back-country oddball. A cello's murky drone seems to drag down and halt time in the unnerving, dirgelike "Feeling Gravitys Pull." At one point in "Driver 8," a faint harmonica conjures echoes of that folk-music staple, the train song, but the landscape passing by the locomotive's windows seems bleak and decaying.

Mostly though, Fables is unretouched R.E.M. in all their rough-cut glory, swinging from contemplative, Byrds-like balladry ("Green Grow the Rushes," "Good Advices") to careening, maniacally driven numbers like "Auctioneer (Another Engine)," which is dense with the mad torque of guitars and drums and Stipe's clenched, tense vocal. It appears to be about the strange motivations and betrayals that underlie a relationship as it comes undone, but who knows?

The guitars on "Maps and Legends" reverberate in the somber and grand-scale mode of the Waterboys and Richard Thompson. Here and elsewhere, Buck's arpeggiated licks circle Maypole-style around the rhythm section's tight foundation until the subject, or object, seems entirely wrapped. This inventiveness makes the R.E.M. of Fables of the Reconstruction sound surer than they did on Reckoning, closer to the insular mood weaving of Murmur.

"Can't Get There from Here" is perhaps the boldest, most full-blooded song this band has recorded. With its scratch-funk guitar, bobbing bass line, spare yet potent drumming and Stipe's enthralling vocal, it deserves to become a hit. It also sets a tone of dislocation that pervades the entire record. Backup voices sing, "I've been there, I know the way," as Stipe growls contrarily, "Can't get there from here." The question is not only "How do we get there?" but "Where are we going?" Fables of the Reconstruction is an odyssey in search of a final destination.

And so it asks more questions than it answers. Listening to Fables of the Reconstruction is like waking up in a menacing yet wonderful world underneath the one we're familiar with. R.E.M. undermines our certitude in reality and deposits us in a new place, filled with both serenity and doubt, where we're forced to think for ourselves.

Parke Puterbaugh - June 20, 1985
RollingStone.com



They hated making it and have often dismissed it, but R.E.M.'s third record, a dark meditation on the soul of the South, has aged brilliantly. Recorded with producer Joe Boyd, Fables explored a craggy interiority they'd later smooth out; Peter Buck's moss-hung jangle and Michael Stipe's benedictive mumbling lent themselves to vague, spellbinding music that floats in the space between history and memory (this reissue adds a boring demos disc). There's a train song, a work song, two songs about sad old guys and "Can't Get There From Here," a poppy tune about not trusting maps that just missed being their first hit.

Jon Dolan - July 12, 2010
RollingStone.com



Fables of the Reconstruction, also known as Reconstruction of the Fables, is the third studio album by the American alternative rock band R.E.M., released on I.R.S. Records in 1985. The Joe Boyd-produced album was the only one recorded by the group outside of the United States but is a concept album of Southern Gothic themes and characters.

Despite the growing audience and critical acclaim experienced by the band after its first two albums, Murmur and Reckoning, R.E.M. decided to make noticeable changes to its style of music and recording habits, including a change in producer to Joe Boyd and in recording location to London, England. Boyd was best known for his work with modern English folk musicians, including such acts such as Fairport Convention and Nick Drake.

It was still a conceptual record by R.E.M. standards: lyrically, the album explores the mythology and landscape of the South, and the title and chorus of "Cant Get There from Here", the album's first single (and intentionally misspelled, like most contractions and possessives in R.E.M. titles), is a rural American colloquialism sometimes used in response to a request by travelers for difficult directions. (The video for the song received airplay on MTV.)

Upon release, Fables of the Reconstruction reached #28 in the United States (going gold in 1991) and was the band's best showing yet in the UK, peaking at #35. Recorded during a period of internal strife—largely due to the R.E.M. members' homesickness and an unpleasant London winter—the band's unenthusiastic view of the album has been public for years, and is often reflected among fans and the press. Drummer Bill Berry was quoted in the early 1990s as saying that Fables of the Reconstruction "sucked"; frontman Michael Stipe once shared the opinion but lately has said he considers it home to some of their more notable songs, telling producer Joe Boyd that he had grown to love the album.

Peter Buck, in the liner notes of the 25th Anniversary Deluxe edition, said, "Over the years, a certain misapprehension about Fables of the Reconstruction has built up. For some reason, people have the impression that the members of R.E.M. don't like the record. Nothing could be further from the truth. [...] It's a personal favorite, and I'm really proud of how strange it is. Nobody but R.E.M. could have made that record."

Fables was often characterized by a slow tempo and an intentionally murky sound, in contrast with the more upbeat and jangly (if equally abstract) sound of earlier R.E.M. material. Nevertheless, the focus on American folk instruments such as the banjo in "Wendell Gee" and a few additional orchestrations (string instruments in "Feeling Gravitys Pull" and honking brass in "Cant Get There from Here") began the band's route toward the layered, acoustic-based sound they adopted for their popular breakthrough in the late '80s and early '90s with albums such as Green, Out of Time, and Automatic for the People.

Wikipedia.org
 

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