Saturday, May 11, 2024

The Tear Garden: Tired Eyes Slowly Burning 1987

 

The Tear Garden is an experimental/electronic band, formed by Edward Ka-Spel of The

THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS

Legendary
Pink Dots and cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy in 1985
after Key served as a sound engineer on tour in Canada for Ka-Spel. An EP, The Tear Garden, was released that same year. While sustaining a stance in the Canadian industrial trio Skinny Puppy, cEvin Key also maintained several side projects such as Tear Garden and Hilt.
              
SKINNY PUPPY

Not as chaotic as Skinny Puppy, Key's ambient side work began in the mid-'80s when he and Legendary Pink Dots' Edward Ka-Spel teamed up to form Tear Garden. Tired Eyes Slowly Burning (1987) marked


the band's debut and sharply defined Key's talented programming skills to move him out from behind the blazing showcase of Skinny Puppy frontman Nivek Ogre. Key's keen ear quickly called out detail while searching for a lush composition versus the sonic disintegration of his other band, and this is what made Tear Garden enjoyably different.
                     

The Tear Garden released the album Tired Eyes Slowly Burning in 1987. It featured contributions from Skinny Puppy members Dwayne Goettel, Nivek Ogre, and Dave Ogilvie. The record featured a nearly

17 minute long track titled "You and Me and Rainbows", described by AllMusic's Sean Carruthers as "monolithic... but worth every second". A reissue of the album included the groups first EP, The Tear Garden, with the rest of the album.[2] Members of the Legendary Pink Dots would henceforth contribute to Tear Garden and in 1992 they released the full-length album The Last Man to Fly.
                   

While completing Skinny Puppy's The Process, things were suddenly interrupted by the 1995
DWAYNE GOETTEL

overdose death of keyboardist Dwayne Goettel.
A bitter battle over the release of The Process prolonged into 1996, giving Key final creative control over his music due to Skinny Puppy's tragic demise.
                 

Not distraught by the horrible events brought on by the year before, Key plugged 1996's To Be an


Angel Blind, the Crippled Soul Divide and 1997's Paradigm Shift, while keeping a low profile, and Tear Garden solidly became his chief project. Two more albums surfaced in 2000, the extensive compilation featuring Skinny Puppy, Legendary Pink Dots, and Tear Garden material entitled Wild Planet: Subconsious Communications, and the new Tear Garden LP Crystal Mass.
               

Tired Eyes Slowly Burning is the debut album of the Canadian band The Tear Garden, released in 1987

through Nettwerk. It is the band's first studio album, preceded by their self-titled EP released a year prior. That EP is appended to the end of Tired Eyes Slowly Burning as tracks 7 to 10. AllMusic critic Sean Carruthers wrote, "it mixes together to create a dreamy electronic mix that owes something to both Skinny Puppy and The Legendary Pink Dots, but is nonetheless totally different.
               

Think Pink Floyd on a scary electronic acid trip and you're getting close." James Muretich of the

Calgary Herald felt the album was more enjoyable than the output of Ka-Spel and Key's respective bands at the time, and said that it "engrosses the senses with its eerie but enticing psychedelic/electronic sound". Tom harrison of The Province likened the album to the work of Pink Floyd and praised the two musicians for leaving their comfort zone to produce an album that he thought was "palpably romantic".
                            

The Tear Garden – Tired Eyes Slowly Burning
Label: Nettwerk – W2-30019
Format: CD, Album, Reissue
Country: US
Released: 1987    
Genre: Electronic, Rock
Style: Industrial, Experimental

TRAXS

               


01. Deja Vu    4:48
02. Room With A View    6:06
03. Coma    4:10
04. Valium    5:38
05. You And Me And Rainbows (Parts One To Six)    16:46
06. OO EE OO    5:16
07. The Center Bullet    9:46
08. Ophelia    8:36
09. Tear Garden    4:50
10. My Thorny Thorny Crown    3:57

LINE - UP

THE TEAR GARDEN

              


Edward Ka-Spel – lyrics, vocals, music
cEvin Key – lyrics, music, engineering, mixing

ADDITIONAL MUSICIANS

              


Dwayne Goettel – keyboards (1, 2, 3, 5)
Dave Ogilvie – guitar and tapes (1, 5), engineering, mixing
Lee Salford – percussion (2, 5)
Lisa – vocals (4)
Nivek Ogre – vocals (5)

TEAR GARDEN LYRICS
                          


 
Our lady on the balcony in black and red
The band plays stronger
Spinning back we tread on broken glass
Our heels dig harder

I circle round inside your belt
I felt your heart race faster
Our eyes met with the eyes fixed in the sky
All seeing, knowing, probing, to the bottom of our souls

On tear garden
On tear garden

You moaned
We shivered
We cowered in the corner
We watch the arms go flying rigid
Heard them call his name again
Again

Pressed our hands to our ears
We waited for the rain
Waiting for the gentle rain to fall on tear garden
Waiting for the gentle rain to fall on tear garden
Tear garden

8 comments:

  1. It's always fun to take a trip to other blogs. For example, the operator of the blog Bordel de Rock. Under True West ( last entry) he claims that 99% of the cds are compressed pressing, hehe...It's the same guy who claims that everything on WIKEPEDIA is a lie. (Falls under conspiracy theories). Probably, he wrote to me to finally wake up, he still feels superior to the masses, since the have no idea about the alleged conspiracies.
    My god, how many crazy people are out there.

    Erwin, a record freak here in Vienna recently told me Pokora, everyone knows him ( i don't know him and have no desire to get know him), with his books about rarities and probably the best record collection in the world, so he clains that again cds only last a day. All of this would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic at the same time.

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    Replies
    1. Really I don't give a shit about all the conspiracy theories, I'm with you when you tell: "My god, how many crazy people are out there."
      CDs only last a day? What is that?
      99% of the cds are compressed pressing?
      All these are very funny and make me laugh.
      ...But it's okay. If CDs only last a day, Urban Aspirines last almost 18 years. Long live to ROCK!!! Ha! ha! Ha!

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    2. It's nice that you agree with me.
      URBAN ASPIRINES an island for normal people to which you can escape at the end of the day with lots of crazy ideas.

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  2. Many thanks Kostas for sharing this new band for me and look forwards to listning to this tonight on the headphones. As always it is very much appreciated all the time and effort that you guys put into your wonderful blogs....Love & Peace Stu

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  3. This morning i watched Tarantino's PULP FICTION on dvd. Seen in the early 90s but now totally forgotten. There is a scene here that is one of the most beautiful and moving that i have seen so far in film history. As the young woman dances to the song by Neil Diamond " girl, you'll be a woman soon". BEAUTIFUL ! I'm going to the order the Soundtrack for 2e straight away, there are other very good numbers, although i'll be missing the film scene. Luckily i have the dvd and can watch it if necessary.

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  4. Kostas, I did not know of this Skinny Puppy project thank you! I had posted their DVD long ago and was quite popular at our collective DU blog. If you have no doubts about Wiki I recommend a few videos from this channel https://www.youtube.com/@Mylunchbreak . yeah too bad about CD's from 1994 and on but I think this is very general since they improved in 1997

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    Replies
    1. Hello my friend. Nice to hear you again. Skinny Puppy were more violent, experimental, electro-industrial in their sound and lyrics, while The Tear Garden were more romantic. Skinny Puppy were among the founders of the industrial rock, but of course you know it.
      Thank you for your comment, I wish you the best!

      Delete