During a break in the 1998 Bauhaus reunion tour, Murphy went into a Seattle studio with KMFDM veterans Sascha and Tim Skold, along with Wax Trax!/Swans jack-of-all-trades performer Bill Rieflin, resulting in a fine five-song effort. Half new songs and half reinterpretations of older ones, Recall... [+] Expand

During a break in the 1998 Bauhaus reunion tour, Murphy went into a Seattle studio with KMFDM veterans Sascha and Tim Skold, along with Wax Trax!/Swans jack-of-all-trades performer Bill Rieflin, resulting in a fine five-song effort. Half new songs and half reinterpretations of older ones, Recall showed Murphy still in fine voice and able to create tunes as striking as those of his considerable past. The remakes take, unsurprisingly, a slightly harder/electronic turn than their previous incarnations. "Roll Call" was already a powerful art rock/hip-hop number on Deep; here, the beat is faster and increasingly more brutal while the synth/guitar arrangement is just a touch more restrained. "Indigo Eyes" exchanges the Love Hysteria original's lead wash of acoustic and electric guitars for a rough, bass-heavy loop and a lead synth melody, not to mention some nice backing vocals on the chorus. In both cases Murphy's new vocals do the job just fine, taking a more considered tone on "Indigo Eyes" especially. Of the new songs, the measured pace of "Big Love of a Tiny Fool," inspired by a Turkish folk tale and song, is especially fine, appearing in both a full electronic arrangement and a "live" take with just acoustic guitar and piano. "Surrendered" features Turkish guest singer Shengul on a lovely, distinctly Middle Eastern-flavored orchestration. A final untitled a cappella bonus track -- a take of "Cool Cool Breeze," originally recorded for Smoke but left off, aside from a brief snippet of backing vocals -- lets Murphy show why his voice is the highly rated instrument that it is. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide [-] Collapse

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