Fuck Your Dreams, This Is Heaven

A rather strange idea, this original soundtrack has members of Minimal Compact and Tuxedomoon and vocalist Niki Mono diving into material by various disparate 1960s rock icons, with three tracks by Syd Barrett or Pink Floyd, a pair of Velvet Underground tunes, and a song each by the Yardbirds and Jefferson Airplane, as well as a Patti Smith piece and an original to round off the LP. The psychedelic '60s music gets transformed into chamber rock pieces, with somewhat subdued but lush piano and violins, stiff, clunky rhythms, and oozing with the peculiar Euro-decadence tendencies that both Minimal Compact and Tuxedomoon gravitate toward. Since the Velvet Underground pieces were already quite saturated in decadence, the transformation is not quite as radical as the slow and ponderous rendition of Jefferson Airplane's "Coming Back to Me" or the Yardbirds' "Still I'm Sad," with its chorus of deathly vocals. At times this gang almost trips over its own pretentiousness, but then a goofy sense of humor sneaks in on Pink Floyd's "Flaming." Whereas some groups, say the Grateful Dead, will suck the life out of a cover version and leave it at that, the musicians on Fuck Your Dreams suck the life out of these songs to turn them into strange and beautiful corpses. This may not be the best material by either Tuxedomoon or Minimal Compact, but it's certainly quite fascinating just the same.