Fugazi

 

 

Do you realise, this world is totally fugazi
Where are the prophets, where are the visionaries, where are the poets?

With the deluxe release of Fugazi now out, I thought I would take some time to catch up my thoughts about this re-release series.  Fugazi finishes up the Fish years, and holds a peculiar position in Marillion history, being a classic-but-forgotten album.  This mostly stems from H's avoidance of its material, leaving it essentially dead as far as Marillion themselves are concerned.  But, even before Fish's departure, songs like She Chameleon had disappeared from the setlist before the tour. Furthermore, both fans and the band found the mixing disappointing, a situation which has now been rectified with this opportunity.  I confess this applies to my own listening rotation as well.  Randomly select any point on Fugazi and you will instantly hear top quality classic Marillion music. Given that my introduction to Marillion started with Brief Encounter, Real to Reel and The Thieving Magpie, these tracks were part of the core sound that fascinated me as a new musical world.  Certainly, you could say that this is where Marillion developed their sound. Although they were at the lead of pushing the genre into the neo-progressive era, the first album consisting of much material which was aligned with what previous bands had done, as well as pre-developed material from the early proto-Marillion band members. But, this album as a whole just seems . . . incomplete? Unfinished? Short? Missing one more anchoring track? While Assassing and Fugazi are strong songs in the band's history, Jigsaw and Emerald Lies, while being excellent deep cuts, somewhat reside in the shadow of those book-end songs, and both Incubus and She Chameleon now seem a bit dated and controversial from a post-2010 viewpoint. The only single, Punch and Judy is perhaps the one Marillion track that most foreshadows Fish's post band career. Every thing done here would eventually come together more coherent and powerful on the next record.  Really, this is a prototype for Misplaced Childhood, and may have worked better in that album's ultimate format.

The deluxe series, being theoretically the definitive version of each album session, is in a difficult position.  Marillion has done an excellent job of releasing just about every recorded note of value to outside listeners.  The remasters series with collected demos and B-sides covered the original eight records (starting with their emergence only four years after the band left EMI).  And, the Making-of series beginning with Brave has covered not only the demo sessions, but the pre-demo musically sketches.  Appropriately, Afraid of Sunlight has revived the most coverage with the deluxe version containing demo material beyond the remaster release and the Refracted making-of.  There simply isn't much old material to be found.  On the live side, Marillion might be the best documented band in history (at least for the last 15 years of material), featuring 50-some live albums, considerable tour downloads since 2008, two live box sets covering the EMI period and the 50 FRC live albums which also represent the H period well.  Only the Fish years have possibly been under represented, and the only unreleased material that could have been included would come from that live history.  Torch Song had a dozen live performances in 1987 (and was recorded), including that with Clutching At Straws would have been the first release of it's live version. As for Script (and its live connection to Fugazi), inclusion of the 1982 Marquee show would have been the first release of the song Institution Waltz as well as a unique release of the original version of She Chameleon (provided there exists an adequate recording).  Other than these performances there doesn't appear to be anything unreleased.

Regarding the form and structure of the new releases, the main selling point of the deluxe series resides in the live shows documenting each corresponding tour, the making-of interviews, and the new mixes, including 5.1 and 48K or 96K stereo versions.  With maddening inconsistency, this series has progressed to show an evolution (ignoring chronological order) that makes later releases "definitive". Script added video content with the addition of Recital of the Script to the Blu-ray, and Fugazi includes an extra bonus with a 1984 live performance video.  Both of these discs also include HQ versions of their corresponding live discs. Furthermore, a second documentary has been included for Fugazi. There has been much whinging about the extra tracks being moved to the BD disc (although the 2-disc remasters have been around for twenty years for those unwilling to give up their CDs).  Unfortunately, the Brave release omitted some of the extra tracks even on the BD disc, and Script ignored some of the Market Square Heroes material and demos, every other release has included all of the 2-disc material (and Clutching at Straws, Brave, and Afraid of Sunlight containing the original mixes of the album).  I have grown to find the format of the last two releases preferable as the Blu-ray contains the full HQ album, the extra tracks, the live album in HQ and the video content all on one disc. Looking back, it would be nice to have the first four releases to have HQ live material and extra tracks on that disc. As for the live video, it would have been a great advantage on those other releases, but being rare and expensive at the time, and dependent on the rights-holders, it is understandably not present. One issue regarding Fugazi content involves the relegation of Cinderella Search to the video disc.  While not complete for inclusion on the original album, both fans and the band alike view this track as one of the strongest of the session (it is even included within the song commentary).  Given this recognition, and the perceived shortness of the album, as a retrospective opportunity it would have been an added value to included it on the album disc (and remaster/ mix it) as both a convenience and aesthetic choice.

With the upcoming Seasons End and Holidays In Eden releases, the band's most important evolutionary period will be covered, leaving only the Racket years left for possible revisiting. While it will be nice from an aesthetic viewpoint to have the following ten (or twelve) albums done in this format, the period has been so well documented that there probably won't be any further primary material to be excavated, leaving 5.1 mixes, documentaries, and a complete collection all in one singular release as their raison d'être.

It seems prescient that Fugazi became the first post-pandemic release, a statement of the times, as the world truly has become Fugazi.