Zarko

The first bootleg of the group, released 1987, roughly around the same time, if not a bit after, Within The Realm of a Dying Sun. The songs were recorded on an early DCD tour, with little effort. As a precursor, don’t worry, I don’t plan to make these reviews as hearty as the actual studio album reviews. A few of you may notice that I used the Europe 1987 bootlegs as my Youtube songs, given that the actual studio versions themselves were disallowed by Youtube. I will be doing bootleg/live album reviews a little differently as well for what it’s worth.

Quality – This is the first question you really have to ask when it comes to bootlegs. So how does it stand up when it comes to Europe 1987? Let’s just say there is a lot to be desired. There is a constant fuzz that whilst isn’t actually noticeable as a sound, noticeably veils the actual bands performance itself. The sound quality is dull and uninspiring, meaning that a lot of the ‘magic’ that is present on studio albums or live performances themselves have been destroyed. Then again, what do you expect from a band that was at that time quite niche, with little following and the band themselves attempting the recording with little help from 4AD. The sound quality variation is obvious, but it doesn’t really kill the bootleg for me. It is no where near their later bootlegs, but for an early attempt, it isn’t too bad. 4/10


Songs – 1987 focuses heavily, for obvious reasons, on Within The Realm of a Dying Sun (Being the album they were advertising). It contains most of Dying Sun, with a healthy sprinkling of Spleen and Ideal, such as Circumradiant Dawn, Avatar, Indoctrination and Enigma of the Absolute. They completely forego their debut album songs; though I guess this is understandable given their variation form their then-current material. Nicely, they add ‘In Power We Entrust The Love Advocated’ and ‘The Arcane’, from their EP Garden of the Arcane Delights. 8/10 for the song selection. As I mentioned in the opening post, the band introduced a lot of unheard material in their live concerts. So what do we have here?

At First, And Then… - Introduced with some slow and undisruptive flute work, menacing drumming enters the fray, but the song never loses it’s measured and deathly trudge, before exploding roughly half way through the song to a galloping frenzy. The song is entirely instrumental, and it’s pretty interesting, especially when heard for the first time. It would have been nice for this song to have been studio-ised in a loud, abrasive manner such as Black Sun from Aion, though it holds its personal mystique by being here all on its lonesome.

Severance/The Host of Seraphim – Early variations of the two songs that would later be released on The Serpents Egg. Severance reaches only 2 and a half minutes, whilst the Host had similarly not been entirely fleshed out, barely reaching 4 minutes in length. Both, unfortunately, lose their power through the inferior production, but both are worth listening to, if only for comparison to their future counterparts.

The Children’s Toys – A Gerrard/Perry duo performance, with the supporting percussion suggesting the title of the song has been aptly attributed. The song builds up eventually into a seemingly playful and slow tune, that manages to sound quite menacing.

Swans – A nice and short Gerrard performance that she would alter adopt in her solo career (Appearing on The Mirror Pool)

Performance – Given the production levels, you can’t really complain that the vocal work is inferior to the studio albums. That is almost a certainty, and probably unfair to compare them on an equal billing. The duo do well with what they have, though the occasional stuff up is present. Personally, I much prefer the songs from their EP on this bootleg than the EP itself, which is released with their debut album nowadays. Everything is also much shorter perhaps most obvious with Avatar, which seems much much faster than her counterpart, despite being similar lengths in time. This is due to the sounds not really being fleshed out, and instead the sudden and abrupt tones make it seem faster. 6/10


Now, chances are if you find this album online, it will be well and truly stuffed up, specifically order wise.Unfortunately, Ocean is not present on the album (The track list is lying to you ) and tracks 10 and 12 are misspelt. I think I had to re-label everything to get it in the right order.


In A Few Words: An interesting bootleg but mainly for purists.
Rating - 4/10