Roger Waters New Album: The Soldier's Tale - Your Thoughts

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Keith Jordan
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Roger Waters New Album: The Soldier's Tale - Your Thoughts

Post by Keith Jordan »

News story > https://www.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/roge ... um-out-now

Roger Waters has released a new album The Soldier’s Tale which was released on Friday 26th October 2018.

Released by Sony Music Classical, it features Roger’s narration of a range of characters – all characters – and is set against music performed by Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival Orchestra with whom Roger performed with in 2008.

Roger has always enjoyed doing his voices and many feature on Pink Floyd recordings from over the years. Adding to his successful Ca Ira opera, Roger Waters has re-written the text for Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale”.


Have you listened to the new album yet? What are your thoughts on it? It is on Spotify.
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Re: Roger Waters New Album: The Soldier's Tale - Your Thoughts

Post by twcc »

It's a most intriguing listen.

First off, I thought I had a faulty CD as it took three times to load; but it now plays OK. If you're expecting 'classic' Pink Floyd or 'typical' Roger Waters solo music you'll be disappointed, but if you like S.F Sorrow or Betjeman's Banana Blush by Jim Parker you may find the album an interesting variant on an audiobook. The raft of characters and voices, the fantastic delivery and inflexions in the voice we are familiar with are great and require careful listening. The album is something you need to sit down with, listen to carefully, and not have on as background 'music' in the car.

The text size in the CD booklet is small and I hope it will be available, somewhere, as a .pdf as I would like to read it whilst listening to the narration.
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Re: Roger Waters New Album: The Soldier's Tale - Your Thoughts

Post by Hadrian »

I discovered something quite interesting. What is now The Soldier's Tale album was performed live in its entirety (with Roger narrating, and chamber orchestra performing) on 14 August 2015 (Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, New York). There are a few words about it all
here, here and here. The musicians who played this live are the same ones who recorded the album with Roger, so I guess those lucky folks who attended the concert and later purchased the album had a full album & tour experience with this one \:D/

I bought a copy for posterity. I listened to the whole thing once (so far) out of curiosity. The same thing happened with Ça Ira. Both are not really my cup of tea, but I respect them and I would go to see them live if there was a performance in my neck of the woods (especially with Roger narrating). I love the idea of both, very out there - it shows Roger's creativity in a beautiful way.
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Re: Roger Waters New Album: The Soldier's Tale - Your Thoughts

Post by twcc »

^^^
Thanks for posting those links ... the third link here has an embedded press release and CD booklet, not quite the .pdf I was looking for but easier to read on the monitor than in the small booklet.
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Re: Roger Waters New Album: The Soldier's Tale - Your Thoughts

Post by Hadrian »

The .pdf is fully zoomable, you can make the CD booklet pages go full screen on your desktop in great quality
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Re: Roger Waters New Album: The Soldier's Tale - Your Thoughts

Post by Annoying Twit »

My first thoughts were that I never expected Roger to be releasing a new album.

It's not my sort of thing, but I greatly appreciate the fact that he's doing something interesting.
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Re: Roger Waters New Album: The Soldier's Tale - Your Thoughts

Post by Annoying Twit »

Following up, one thing I note from an early listen is how well Rog's voice is recorded. Spoken word is not the hardest thing in the world to record, but this recording sounds masterful. His voice sounds perfect, and in my opinion that's not just down to his performance, but the recording as well.
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Re: Roger Waters New Album: The Soldier's Tale - Your Thoughts

Post by twcc »

^^^
I agree, as I noted above -
twcc wrote: Fri Nov 02, 2018 11:10 pm ... The raft of characters and voices, the fantastic delivery and inflexions in the voice we are familiar with are great and require careful listening. The album is something you need to sit down with, listen to carefully, and not have on as background 'music' in the car.