FAQ:
"Unfortunately the first album ('Autumnal Park') was never relesed on CD. The 2nd album 'Love An Adventure' was released on CD, both here and overseas. There are 2 versions of the 'Love An Adventure' CD, with the OS version bearing a different cover art (Pseudo Echo's famous sunset portrait) and a couple songs from the first album, which were remixed, ( or should I say destroyed ! )...
Anyway all I can do is give you the catalog number of the " Love An Adventure " CD.... CDP 7 46257 2."
Brian Canham
 |
 |
 |
 |
Best Adventures reviewed by Cameron Adams from Melbourne's Beat Magazine.
If nothing else, Best Adventures proves just how wrong things can go. In under an hour (and in the course of just three albums), Pseudo Echo go from sounding like Visage to Van Halen, all in the pursuit of credibility.
Their debut album Autumnal Park made them accidental popstars, although it had pure pop songs like Listening and A Beat For You it was generally filled with moody electronic soundscapes heavily influenced by the likes of Japan (Brian Canham had the David Sylvian drone down pat), Roxy Music and Duran Duran. In fact they soon became Melbourne's own Duran Duran, the popstars you could bump into if you went to the right clubs or shopped in the right places.
By their second album Love An Adventure the dark cloud had lifted and they enjoyed their status as pop stars. Love An Adventure remains one of the best pure-pop albums released in this country, during recording each track was worked on as if it was to be a single, and as a result, most of them were. The naggingly catchy Don't Go was a hit by design (Brian Canham now makes jingles probably using much the same method), Love An Adventure was their epic pop moment, while album track Try somehow escaped selection as a single, it's funky grooves strangely recall The Bomb by the Bucketheads in places.
Living In A Dream introduced rock to the equation, with screaming guitar punctuating the mix. And from there it was a short step to their de-discofying of Funky Town, a national number one for over two months (no mean feat) and top ten in both the UK and US.
It was touring for that hit, and the constant accusations of being a hairdresser band, that led to their demise with album number three, Race. Half the band thought they were in Van Halen, and as Canham states now, the original mixes (ala Funky Town) were sent to LA for poodle-rocking.
So Best Adventures is at least chronological, highlighting the rise, the peak and the fall, but is not as comprehensive as it should be. Singles are missing (Stranger In Me), key album tracks are absent, and there's nothing as simple as a 1995 remix of one of the older tunes to hang this collection on. Still, it serves as a lesson to anyone who's ever picked up a guitar. Or a synthesizer.
(8/10)
CAMERON ADAMS
