Excess Flesh

Etsuraku / Pleasures of the Flesh - by Nagisa Oshima (1965)

A corrupt businessman blackmails the lovelorn reprobate Atsushi into watching over his suitcase full of embezzled cash while he serves a jail sentence. Rather than wait for the man to retrieve his money, however, Atsushi decides to spend it all in one libidinous rush—fully expecting to be tracked down and killed. Oshima’s dip into the waters of the popular soft-core “pink film” genre is a compelling journey into excess.

In the 1970s, Tom Waits combined a lyrical focus on desperate, low-life characters with a persona that seemed to embody the same lifestyle, which he sang about in a raspy, gravelly voice. From the '80s on, his work became increasingly theatrical as he moved into acting and composing…

Perhaps Tom Waits' most cohesive album, Bone Machine is a morbid, sinister nightmare, one that applied the quirks of his experimental '80s classics to stunningly evocative - and often harrowing - effect. In keeping with the title's grotesque image of the human body, Bone Machine is obsessed with decay and mortality, the ease with which earthly existence can be destroyed. The arrangements are accordingly stripped of all excess flesh; the very few, often non-traditional instruments float in distinct separation over the clanking junkyard percussion that dominates the record. It's a chilling, primal sound made all the more otherworldly (or, perhaps, underworldly) by Waits' raspy falsetto and often-distorted roars and growls. Matching that evocative power is Waits' songwriting, which is arguably the most consistently focused it's ever been…

EU-only eight disc (seven CDs+DVD) box set from the former Pink Floydian. Contains all of his solo studio work to date plus his live album In The Flesh. Features: The Pros And Cons Of Hitch-Hiking (1984), Radio Kaos (1987) Amused To Death (1992), In The Flesh (two CDs/2000) and Ca Ira (two CDs/2005). Also includes the live In The Flesh DVD recorded June 27th, 2000 at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon. Roger Waters was a primary creative force in Pink Floyd from 1965 to 1983.