Seminal Live
| Seminal Live | ||||
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| Studio album by The Fall | ||||
| Released | June 1989 | |||
| Genre | Post-punk | |||
| Length | 41:13 (vinyl) 59:59 (CD/cassette) |
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| Label | Beggars Banquet | |||
| Producer | Shan Hira, Mark E. Smith |
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| The Fall chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Alternative Press | favourable |
| NME | 6/10 |
| Record Mirror | 3/5 |
Seminal Live is a 1989 album by British rock band The Fall, recorded partly in the studio and partly at live performances in 1988. The album was the last to be released by the group through Beggars Banquet Records, and as such is often seen as a "contractual obligation" album. It was also the last Fall album to feature Brix Smith, former wife of the lead singer Mark E. Smith, until her return for 1995's Cerebral Caustic.
The studio recordings on Seminal Live were all new songs and make up the first five tracks of the album—side one on the original vinyl release. The live recordings on side two, meanwhile, are all versions of previously-released tracks.
In a 2006 interview with The Pseud Mag fanzine, keyboardist Marcia Scofield called Seminal Live "the worst piece of shit I have ever worked on [...] Talk about exhausted and out of ideas. It was one of those-we've just come off tour and have to make a record so what shit covers can we bung on it?-album".
Critical response to the album was somewhat mixed. Andrew Collins, writing in the NME, suggests: "Seminal Live is worse than an intellectual letdown, it's a tease". The songs themselves also provoked a variety of responses from journalists. Jason Pettigrew of the Alternative Press writes: "For pure weirdness value, look no further than "Mollusc in Tyrol", a musique concrete rave-up on top of a Neubauten "Yu-Gung" rhythm track that's been buried alive". A reviewer for the Record Mirror, by contrast, says: "'Mollusc In Tyrol' is a totally unbearable drone which should never have found its way from the vaults".
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