''Mamouna'' is the ninth solo album by
Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 26 September 1945) is an English singer and songwriter. His voice has been described as an "elegant, seductive croon". He also established a distinctive image and sartorial style: according to ' ...
, released on
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...
first on 31 August 1994 in Japan and then on 5 September in the UK. It was Ferry's first album of original material in seven years and he spent six years writing and recording it, under the working title ''Horoscope''. The album peaked at number 11 on the UK Albums Chart.
The album features contributions from former members of Ferry's band
Roxy Music
Roxy Music are an English rock music, rock band formed in 1970 by Bryan Ferry—who became the band's lead vocalist and principal songwriter—and bassist Graham Simpson (musician), Graham Simpson. The other longtime members are Phil Manzanera ...
, including
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...
who left the band in 1973.
Critical reception
Reviewing for
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
, critic Ned Raggett wrote of the album: “There are some songs of note — ‘The 39 Steps’ has a slightly menacing vibe to it, appropriate given the cinematic reference of the title, while the Ferry/
Eno
Eno may refer to:
Music
* English National Opera, London
* ''Eno'', an album by Japanese band Polysics
* "Eno", a song by X-Wife from '' Rockin' Rio EP''
Organisations and businesses
* Eno (company), a Chinese clothing and accessories busine ...
collaboration ‘Wildcat Days’ displays some of Eno’s old synth-melting flash. Overall, though, ''Mamouna'' is pleasant without being involving.”
Track listing
All tracks composed by Bryan Ferry, except where noted.
#"Don't Want To Know" – 4:07
#"N.Y.C." – 4:10
#"Your Painted Smile" – 3:14
#"Mamouna" – 5:11
#"The Only Face" – 4:40
#"The 39 Steps" – 5:01
#"Which Way To Turn" – 5:44
#"Wildcat Days" (Ferry,
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...
) – 4:34
#"Gemini Moon" – 3:47
#"Chain Reaction" – 5:08
#"
In Every Dream Home a Heartache
"In Every Dream Home a Heartache" is a song written by Bryan Ferry, originally appearing on his band Roxy Music's second album, ''For Your Pleasure''.
Lyrically, the song is a sinister monologue, part critique of the emptiness of opulence, partly ...
" (Live) – 7:34
apan only bonus track#"Bête Noire" (Ferry,
Patrick Leonard
Patrick Ray Leonard (born March 14, 1956) is an American songwriter, keyboardist, film composer, and music producer, best known for his longtime collaboration with Madonna. His work with Madonna includes her albums '' True Blue'' (1986), ''Who's ...
) (Live) – 4:05
apan only bonus track
Personnel
* Bryan Ferry – lead vocals, acoustic piano (1-8, 10),
Oberheim synthesizer (1), various synth sounds (2, 5, 6, 8), synth oboe (3, 9, 10), synth sax (4),
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...
(4),
vocoder
A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation.
The vocoder was ...
(5),
Roland Juno-106
The Roland Juno-106 is a synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in February 1984.
Features
The Juno-106 is a polyphonic synthesizer with six voices. It is an analog synthesizer but with digitally controlled oscillators and chorus effects ...
(6),
Prophet-5
The Prophet-5 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the American company Sequential (company), Sequential. It was designed by Dave Smith (engineer), Dave Smith and John S. Bowen (sound designer), John Bowen in 1977, who used Microprocessor, m ...
(6),
Roland Jupiter-8
The Jupiter-8, or JP-8, is an eight-voice polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early 1981.
The Jupiter-8 was Roland's flagship synthesizer for the first half of the 1980s. Approximately 3300 units have b ...
(7), strings (9, 10)
*
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...
– various sonics (1, 4-7, 9, 10), sweep treatments (8)
*
Richard T. Norris – programming (2, 3, 5, 9, 10),
loops (8)
*
Rhett Davies
Rhett Davies (born 1949 in London) is an English record producer and engineer.
Davies' father was trumpet player Ray Davies (no relation to Ray Davies of The Kinks). Davies became a studio engineer at Island Records studios in the early 1970s, a ...
– programming (7)
*
Guy Fletcher
Guy Edward Fletcher (born 24 May 1960) is an English multi-instrumentalist, best known for his position as one of the two Keyboard instrument, keyboard players in the rock band Dire Straits from 1984 until the group's dissolution, and his subs ...
– synthesizers (10)
*
Neil Hubbard
Neil Terrence Hubbard (born 24 February 1948) is a British guitarist who has performed with Juicy Lucy, The Grease Band, Bluesology, Joe Cocker, Roxy Music, Kokomo, Alvin Lee, B.B. King, Kevin Rowland and Tony O'Malley, and played on the or ...
– rhythm guitar (1), guitar licks (2, 4, 6, 7), lead guitar (3, 5, 10), guitar (9)
*
Chester Kamen
Chester Kamen (born in Hackney, London) is an English session guitarist, whose work has included performing with Paul McCartney, Bryan Ferry, Bob Geldof, Madonna, Duran Duran, Robbie Williams, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Seal, Massive Attack, Ki ...
– guitar (1, 3, 4, 7-10),
Latin guitar (5),
gondola
The gondola (, ; vec, góndoła ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hull ...
(6), guitar scratches (8)
*
Phil Manzanera
Phillip Geoffrey Targett-Adams (born 31 January 1951), known professionally as Phil Manzanera, is an English guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is the lead guitarist with Roxy Music, and was the lead guitarist with 801, and Quiet Sun. ...
– guitar (1, 7)
* Jeff Thall – guitar (1-4, 6, 8, 10)
*
David Williams – guitar riff (1, 4, 6, 7, 8), backing vocals (2), rhythm guitar (3, 9, 10)
*
Nile Rodgers
Nile Gregory Rodgers Jr. (born September 19, 1952) is an American musician, record producer and composer. The co-founder of Chic, Rodgers has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 500 million albums and 75 million ...
– rhythm guitar (2, 6, 9)
*
Robin Trower
Robin Leonard Trower (born 9 March 1945) is an English rock guitarist who achieved success with Procol Harum throughout 1967–1971, and then again as the bandleader of his own power trio known as the Robin Trower Band.
Biography
Robin Trowe ...
– guitar (6)
*
Neil Jason
Neil is a masculine name of Gaelic and Irish origin. The name is an anglicisation of the Irish ''Niall'' which is of disputed derivation. The Irish name may be derived from words meaning "cloud", "passionate", "victory", "honour" or "champion".. ...
– Bass (9)
*
Nathan East
Nathan Harrell East (born December 8, 1955) is an American jazz, R&B, and rock bass player and vocalist. With more than 2,000 recordings, East is one of the most recorded bass players in the history of music. East holds a Bachelor of Arts degr ...
– bass (1, 2, 3, 5-10)
*
Pino Palladino
Giuseppe Henry "Pino" Palladino (born 17 October 1957) is a Welsh musician, songwriter, and record producer. A prolific session bassist, he has played bass for acts such as The Who, the John Mayer Trio, Nine Inch Nails, Gary Numan, Jeff Beck ...
– bass (4)
*
Guy Pratt
Guy Adam Pratt (born 3 January 1962) is a British musician. He is best known for his prolific work as a session bass player, working with artists including Pink Floyd (also David Gilmour and Nick Mason), Roxy Music (also Bryan Ferry), Gary M ...
–
Wah bass (5, 6, 9)
*
Steve Ferrone
Steve Ferrone (born 25 April 1950) is an English drummer. He is known as a member of the rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from 1994 to 2017, replacing original drummer Stan Lynch, and as part of the "classic lineup" of the Average Whi ...
– drums
* Luke Cresswell – percussion (2)
*
Luís Jardim
Luís Alberto Figueira Gonçalves Jardim (born 4 July 1950) is a Portuguese percussionist, born in the Madeira Island, best known for his work with producer Trevor Horn.
Family
Jardim is a cousin of Alberto João Jardim (former president of the ...
– percussion (3)
* Steve Scales – percussion (9)
*
Maceo Parker
Maceo Parker (; born February 14, 1943) is an American funk and soul jazz saxophonist, best known for his work with James Brown in the 1960s, Parliament-Funkadelic in the 1970s and Prince in the 2000s. Parker was a prominent soloist on many of B ...
– alto saxophone (2)
* Mike Paice – alto saxophone (7)
*
Andy Mackay
Andrew Mackay (born 23 July 1946) is an English multi-instrumentalist, best known as a founding member (playing oboe and saxophone) of the art rock group Roxy Music.
In addition, he has taught music and provided scores for television, while his ...
– alto saxophone (8, 9)
*
Carleen Anderson
Carleen Cassandra Anderson (born May 10, 1957) is an American singer and musician. She is known for her work with the Young Disciples and numerous collaborations. Her distinguished solo career began in 1992. She is the acclaimed composer, writer ...
– backing vocals
* Jhelisa Anderson – backing vocals (1, 9, 10)
*
Fonzi Thornton
Alfonso "Fonzi" Thornton is a U.S. songwriter/producer and vocal contractor. In a career spanning 40 years, Thornton has sung backing vocals for top artists across many genres of music. His vocal credits can be found on the recordings of Aret ...
– backing vocals (2, 9)
*
Yanick Etienne Yanick is a given name. Notable people with the name include:
*Yanick Dupré (1972–1997), Canadian professional ice hockey player
*Yanick Lehoux (born 1982), Canadian hockey player
*Yanick Paquette (born 1974), Canadian penciller in North America ...
– backing vocals (5, 6)
* Paul Johnson – backing vocals (6)
* Nan Kidwell –
astrologer
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...
(9)
Production
* Bryan Ferry – producer, art direction
* Robin Trower – producer
* Johnson Somerset – assistant producer
* Sven Taits – engineer
* Richard T. Norris – additional engineer
* Simon Puxley – engineer consultant
*
Bob Clearmountain
Bob Clearmountain (born January 15, 1953) is an American recording engineer, mixer and record producer. He has worked with many major acts, including Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Toto, Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams, with whom he has a very ...
– mixing
*
Bob Ludwig
Robert C. Ludwig (born c. 1945) is an American mastering engineer. He has mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists including Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Qu ...
– mastering
* Nick de Ville – art direction, design
* James Ward – painting
* Steven Cassidy – photography
* Andy Gershon – management
* David Enthoven – management
* Juliet Mann – management
* I. E. Management (London) – management company
* Cohen Brothers Management (Los Angeles) – management company
Studios
* Recorded at Utopia Studios, Master Rock Studios and Studio One (London, UK).
* Mixed at MixThis! (Los Angeles, California, USA).
* Mastered at Gateway Mastering (Portland, Maine, USA).
Charts
Album
References
{{Authority control
1994 albums
Bryan Ferry albums
Capitol Records albums