Tilt (Scott Walker album)

The songs on the album have a decidedly bleak, forlorn and funereal mood; the lyrics are replete with arcane allusions and recondite wordplay and ellipses. Like Walker's previous effort, Climate of Hunter (1984), Tilt combines elements of European avant-garde and experimental elements, along with industrial music influences. The unusual literary, musical and performance qualities of Walker's songwriting and singing are reminiscent of the lieder and "art song" traditions – forms which long predate the era of recorded popular music and electronic media.

The compositions emphasize abstract atmospherics over harmonic structure, with minimalist, slightly discordant "sound blocks" and trance-like repetition rendered through carefully nuanced instrumentation and sparsely deployed sonic effects. Walker's voice resonates in a cavernous echo, taking on a haunted, distant, desolate quality, which one reviewer characterized as "Samuel Beckett at La Scala".

The opening track, "Farmer in the City", is subtitled "Remembering Pasolini". A few of the lyrics are appropriated from Norman Macafee's English translation of Pier Paolo Pasolini's poem, "Uno dei tanti epiloghi" ("One of the Many Epilogs"), which was written in 1969 for Pasolini's friend and protégé, the scruffy young nonprofessional actor, Ninetto Davoli. Throughout the song, Walker's chant of "Do I hear 21, 21, 21...? I'll give you 21, 21, 21...", may be a reference to Davoli's age when he was drafted into (and subsequently deserted from) the Italian army.

The lyrics of "The Cockfighter" include "excerpts relocated from the trial of Queen Caroline and the trial of Adolf Eichmann". Both this song and "Bouncer See Bouncer..." also lyrically relate to The Holocaust. "Bolivia '95" is a song about South American refugees. The subtitle of "Manhattan", "flȇrdelē'", is a phonetic-matching corruption of the term fleur de lis, which is mentioned in the lyrics of the song.

In addition to a core lineup of musicians playing rock instruments, the recording also features contributions from the strings of Sinfonia of London and the Methodist Central Hall Pipe Organ, which were arranged and conducted by frequent collaborator Brian Gascoigne.

Two promo CDs were released to promote Tilt on the radio and in record stores, containing edited versions of Tilt songs.

Scott 1 (Fontana – EEFR 1)^[14]

1. "Patriot (a single)" (edit) – 4:40
2. "The Cockfighter" (edit) – 4:07

Scott 2 (Fontana - EEFR 2)^[15]

1. "Tilt" (edit) – 4:38
2. "Farmer in the City" (edit) – 4:37

The album was first released in Europe as a limited edition LP and CD in May 1995 before it was released in the US in 1997. The artwork for the album was designed by Stylorouge with photography and image manipulation of Walker's hand by David Scheinmann from a concept by Walker.

Tilt was met with strong reviews from critics, as well as some bewilderment. As Jazz Monroe summed it up in Pitchfork, "Tilt is good. Scarily, maddeningly good. It is like an old mansion full of haunted arcana: revolving bookcases, secret rooms, a golden pouf to perch on sipping ancient eau de vie. Even the easiest pleasures, like the stained-glass daybreak in 'Bouncer See Bouncer,' arise from such obscure surroundings their beauty is always sudden, a second too quick for your defenses."^[17]