I'm New Here [VINYL]

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Artist: Gil Scott-Heron
Label: XL
Category: Music

Buy New: £26.99
as of 7/9/2010 08:54 CDT details

New (3) from £26.99

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

reviews

Media: Vinyl
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 12.7 x 12.4 x 0.5

UPC: 634904047139
EAN: 0634904047139

Release Date: February 8, 2010
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Temporarily out of stock. Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your credit card will not be charged until we ship the item.

Tracks:

Disc 1

•	On Coming From A Broken Home
•	Me And The Devil
•	I'm New Here
•	Your Soul And Mine
•	Parents
•	I'll Take Care Of You
•	Being Blessed
•	Where Did The Night Go
•	I Was Guided
•	New York Is Killing Me
•	Certain Things
•	Running
•	Crutch, The
•	I've Been Me
•	On Coming From A Broken Home

Disc 2

•	Piano Player
•	Home Is Where The Hatred Is
•	Winter In America
•	Jazz
•	Is That Jazz
•	Place To Go, A
•	My Cloud

Customer Reviews:

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Spirits Still Talking to GSH January 4, 2010
Graham Chapman (London)
61 out of 62 found this review helpful

When Spirits came out it seemed a real comeback - a more stripped down, back to basics (jazz) sound. It was good to hear a GSH album like the earlier ones without the drawn out, overfunked sound of some of the 80's albums. For some reason though he never seemed to play most of the songs of this album in concert.

I never thought it'd be 15 years til his next album and the last few years I never thought there would be a new album at all.

'I'm New Here' is a brutal, stark, blast of an album. Like hearing a dead man's last record. I was reminded of American Prayer - there is a ghostly poetry to GSH's vocals here. An aural 'Blood Simple'. Some may not be so keen on this somewhat filmic, voice over, indie style of record, but I think it's an excellent route for GSH in his later years. The aging icon as a source of pre-death wisdom, like Johnny Cash on his American albums.

There are not many musical legends still recording. Gil Scott-heron is undoubtedly one of them and this is a brilliant record for a new decade.

5 out of 5 stars

Still Burning Brightly February 10, 2010
The Wolf (uk)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful

Once upon a time Gil Scott Heron was a dangerous man.
A visionary, brave and inspirationally dangerous man.

Having listened to 'I'm New Here' three times I put
on my 1971 vinyl copy of 'Pieces Of A Man' (it's more
than a bit scratchy and jumpy now!) to remind myself
of just how much of an iconoclast he was. Unafraid to
challenge the very foundations of enduring inequality
under Richard Nixon's tainted kingdom of deceit and lies,
his contribution to the development of black musical
culture and its relationship to political challenge and
progress was both fearless and uplifting in equal measure.

'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' still packs one
hell of a punch. A heroically scathing cris de coeur.

The last decade seems not to have been a walk in the park
for Mr Scott-Heron but here he is once again with a fine
collection of new songs, interspersed with reflective
poetic interludes. Short and sweet and very moving in
its austerely focussed intensity.

The voice still commands attention. Deeper now and more
than a little rough around the edges but still a unique
instrument with an incalculable ability to communicate
raw emotion and uncomfortable truths.

The contrast between the terrifyingly dark imagery of
'Me and The Devil' and the sweet and tender blues of
'I'll Take Care Of You' could not be greater.
This is a reflection of one of his greatest strengths
as a songwriter and performer : the ability to juggle
hope and despair and to survive the differences.

The stripped down incantation 'New York Is Killing Me',
with its eerily disembodied electronics, crackling and
chaotic percussion and fierce gospel harmonies is as
good as anything he has recorded in his long career.

The siesmic rhythmic pulse accompanying the
distorted vocal treatment of 'The Crutch' creates
a unique soundscape within which the stark lyrics
deliver an almost Biblically apocalyptic wallop!

Richard Russell's uncompromising production brings
great understanding and dignity to Mr Scott-Heron's
fragile but undiminished powers.

The flame still burns brightly!

Essential.

5 out of 5 stars

Non Better. February 14, 2010
SPRay1969 (Manchester UK)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

This will go down as a contender for best (coolest) album of the coming decade. Imagine the coolest guy singing and narrating over the music on Massive Attacks Mezzanine album then times it by five, this is that album. Stunning version of Smog's I'm New Here as the title track. Just amazingly good, you need it! (Hey Amazon, iTunes have a five minute "making of" video on their album.....)

5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant Bonus Disc February 8, 2010
Graham Chapman (London)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

I reviewed the album under CD, but, having bought vinyl and CD, I would strongly advise getting the record. The bonus disc is terrific - throaty, soulful versions of 'Home is Where the Hatred is' and 'Winter in America'. In the introduction to the latter, GSH, has a message to the messengers about fitting music and lyrics. Any GSH fan will want these 'live studio versions.' I don't know whether they are available or will be available in other formats, but great to have.

The record is also beautifully designed, with extra photos, nice thick sleeve. I know...these are trivial, consumerist features, but, come on, half the fun of the record is to lovingly caress the sleeve and pour over it, like it was a religious artifact.

See you at the Festival Hall!

5 out of 5 stars

Two bookends and mighty storm music May 15, 2010
Bm Ballin (Birmingham, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

The two bookends on this album are 'on coming from a broken home', a poignant and reflective tribute to Gil's Grandmother, which set the tone for this most personal of his albums. There is no 'The Revolution ...', 'B-Movies' or 'H2O gate blues', but the LP is no less political for that ... in a society where young black men are more likely to go to prison than to university, and where conservative rhetoric about 'broken homes' [or 'broken Britain' for that matter] crudely pathologises a complex mixture of economics, social pressure, continuing racism, existential striving, resistance and gender politics. The second bookend of the two defiantly reframes that situation as a struggle for survival: a pursuit of happiness, even.

In the 80s, Gil Scott-Heron was a lodestar in a fairly fluffy musical world, articulating with great humour and precision the concerns that many of us had in trying to make our way through life in the Reagan and Thatcher era. His voice is more battered now, more cracked in every way, but the insight and humour is still there - only ploughing a more visceral furrow.

The other pivotal track on this album is the exceptional 'Me and the Devil', where Gill channels the crossroads spirit of Robert Johnson and describes his own pact with the devil. It is this tornado which whirls through the rest of the album, magnificently underpinned by a wholly appropriate blend of deep blues and techno dramatics: hair-raising stuff on the track itself. Whether gently introspective, defiant, chaotically cut-up, the CD is a meditation on that diabolic pact, and Gil's personal jihad to reclaim himself and find a sort of redemption.

The bookends balance out that human tornado, humanise, soften and contextualise and externalise it, take it beyond himself. The grandmother we met years ago in 'Grandma's Hands' [another great G S-H cover] is there as a loving, tough, presiding spirit. Mending what seemed to be broken. This is 28 minutes of powerful medicine: an album, and not just a collection of songs.

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