Let Me Walk With You Cuz It’s Breaking My Heart

1989 saw the release of several fine records, each of which hold a very special place on my record shelves; the Pixies’ Doolittle, Automatic by the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Stone Roses self-titled debut, Privilege by the Television Personalities as well as Bob Mould’s first solo effort, Workbook. Pere Ubu’s Cloudland is another one that could be added to that list.

Rewind to the summer of 1997. I’m in the midst of unhappily traveling (i.e., driving) around between Des Moines, IA and Boston, MA for work-related purposes. Since CD players weren’t automatically assumed in all rental cars, a majority of the vehicles I’m driving contain a tape deck only. Loads of cassettes are packed for the 12 + hours I’m spending each and every day in the car. I have an off-day in Boston that is spent mulling around Cambridge Square. I stop into Newbury Comics and load up on ridiculously underpriced cassettes. Cloudland is one of them. What follows is me listening to this album over and over and over for the next year.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2009. I hadn’t listened to Cloudland in anything resembling a constant rotation for the past ten years as cassettes have become all but extinct unless you happen to be driving around in my mother’s 1998 Camry. I’m flipping through the vinyl racks of the CHIRP Record Fair at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival and stumble across that familiar cover. Ecstatic elation occurs and Cloudland has once again become a regular fixation on the Ditching Boy trellises’ sound system.

While a majority of Pere Ubu’s catalog has always been unsettlingly weird if not downright subversive, Cloudland remains one of the band’s few efforts at constructing a traditional rock album. Where prior song topics have focused on urban decay and social infrastructure, Cloudland goes in the opposite direction by filling up an album full of pop-oriented love songs. Greg Kot described it as the “industrial-strength equivalent of a classic Beach Boys album from musicians more familiar with factory than surf;” an apt comparison since Cloudland retains the classic Pere Ubu-vibe while simultaneously being an immediately enjoyable album.

Pere Ubu – “Waiting For Mary” (mp3)

(from the Fontana LP, Cloudland, 1989)