I don't think I've ever listened to this Wire covermount before and it's too much to absorb through just two listens in a day. It provides a neat counterpoint to yesterday's Introduction to Europe compilation from 14-15 years earlier. Building on the unlikely links made there between the Cocteau Twins, Psalm singing on the Isle of Lewis and Balkan voices, I noticed a superficial similarity between the song by Trottel (from Hungary) and Wales' Datblygu. But more generally I thought I detected an affinity between several of the pieces and Frank Zappa's dense and precise compositions. Zappa was much feted by Václav Havel, who and was acknowledged as an influence by Havel's favourite Czech band, the The Plastic People of the Universe. The latter have a track included at the end of this compilation, presumably the only break with the "new music" policy, and their own role was celebrated in Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll (as was Syd's). But the prevalence of Zappa-affinity that I hear can't all be down to his influence — he can't have been that ubiquitously embraced on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Perhaps his music shared a common root with that of Eastern Europe?
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