DAMAGE CONTROL
MARTIN HALL
CD
JANUARY 2006
PANOPTIKON (OPTIK 05)
Damage Control was released in January 2006 as a detached forerunner of the forthcoming Facsimile album – neither the song nor the four other tracks on the ep was included on the album. Saluting the spirit of the 7” and 12” legacy, the release was meant to be a single project in its own right, an extrovert up-tempo radio bash addressing 21st century consumer fascism.
1. Damage Control (3:38)
2. Swimming Pool Eyes (Winterhill version) (6:44)
3. Vaseline Dream (2400 remix) (7:38)
4. String Quartet Playing in a Refugee Camp (2:53)
5. Play Hard to Get (3:10)
DAMAGE CONTROL
She’s got a heart full of crazy people
She’s clearly not amused
Catching colds and missing trains
Is all she seems to do
The tragic bravados, the bourgeois staccato
Wonder why they bother at all
They’re all talking in headlines but dress out of style
“Get a life and then give me a call”
Every ghetto gladiator, every little Pierrot
Looking like a drag magician in another wasted show
There’s a beggar on each corner, a stench in the air
Life’s a song that’s dedicated to the lovers at Tiananmen Square
So shit in your hat and place your head on a chair
This journey’s clearly not going anywhere
Turn on the tv, the lie of the land
A string quartet playing in a refugee camp
Start with a kiss and soon you’ll need vaseline
The damage control of any tangerine dream
Play hard to get, you’ll end on the run
‘Cause everyone’s bored with all this soft-porn
Confetti-covered, all animated
Party eyes that never close
A wave of raving faces with sparkling smiles
They look the same wherever she goes
The white shirts and big lips
All drowning in honey
Smacking tongues while they’re shaking their heads
Little socialites with portable roots
In her eyes they’d be better off dead
But the shops and the markets
The wild consumer craze
Seem to bind it all together and somehow make their day
All these harlequin girls with swimming pool eyes
If nothing else matters
They really took advantage of their time
Anders Remark: Guitar, emax
Anette Slaatto: Viola
Dan Hemmer: Rhodes
Gisli: Rap
Gry Vester-Andersen: Cello
Hans Nybo: Saxophone
Ida Bach Jensen: String bass
James Crabb: Accordion
Johnny Stage: Guitar, percussion
Karoliina Koivisto: Violin
Ketil Duckert: Trumpet
Lise Munch: French horn
Lotte Arnsbjerg: Vocals
Marie Carmen Koppel: Vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, keyboards, programming, string arrangement
Mimi Kjær: Piano
Minh Le: Drums
Morten Jacobsen: Bass
Sofie Darting: Vocals
Thomas Li: Protools and treatments
Design: Kenneth Schultz
Photo: Hansen-hansen.com
Among the new Hall collaborators on the release you’ll find Summerhill, a Danish group featured as Winterhill as a remix/re-make unit. Their version of the song, “Swimming Pool Eyes, was later included on Hall’s 2008 single compilation album Catalyst.
The title track entered The Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s P3 and P4 airplay chart in week 4 (Danish National Radio) and made its debut at the official sales chart at #16 in week 7, 2006.