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Karl Wallinger<\/strong> forced my car off the road.<\/p>\n Really, he did. It was sometime in 1990; I was driving in the car with my then-wife and newborn daughter as passengers. I don’t recall where we were headed, but I had the radio on, tuned to WRAS, the noncommercial college radio station run by students at Georgia State University. A new song called \u201cPut the Message in the Box\u201d came on, and the song’s infectious hook, classic melody and upbeat-yet-plaintive lyrics completely took my attention away from whatever I was doing at that moment (except driving). So much so that I scouted out the nearest safe place to stop, and pulled the car off the road. With a gentle \u201cshh\u201d I requested that I be allowed to enjoy the rest of the song without distraction. My passengers graciously obliged.<\/p>\n World Party<\/strong>‘s \u201cPut the Message in the Box\u201d remains an all-time favorite of mine. It wasn’t the first of their songs I knew, not by a long shot. I picked up Private Revolution<\/em> when it came out back in 1986; \u201cShip of Fools\u201d was my favorite (and the hit) off that debut LP. But three-plus years had elapsed since Private Revolution<\/em> \u2013 an eternity in the music business \u2013 and I suppose I viewed World Party as a one-(minor) hit wonder that faded away. So when Goodbye Jumbo<\/em> came out, I grabbed it right away.<\/p>\n The final decade of the 20th<\/sup> century was that curious era when the vinyl format had been largely abandoned by the majors, and I wouldn’t purchase a CD player until late 1993, so it meant that when Bang!<\/em> was released in 1993, I had to buy it on cassette (waiting simply wasn’t an option). By the time Egyptology<\/em> was released (1997 \u2013 Wallinger took a long time between album releases) I had a CD player, and bought the album as quickly as possible. The Enclave was a new label with high hopes for its artists \u2013 World Party chief among them \u2013 but it fell apart shortly after Egyptology<\/em>‘s release, making the album harder than it should have been to locate in stores, and blunting any hopes it had of faring well on the charts.<\/p>\n Still, I was thrilled when I learned that World Party was actually going to tour; their Atlanta date remains one of the best shows I attended; of particular note was the way in which the band used the chiming coda of Egyptology<\/em>‘s \u201cAlways\u201d as a minimalist way to end the set.<\/p>\n That was it for World Party again for some time. By the time Dumbing Up<\/em> was released, we were in the new century. The album’s homespun Photoshop cover fit \u2013 unfortunately \u2013 with a set of songs that somehow missed the mark. From anyone else, they probably would have been fine, and there certainly were a few gems. But in general the memorability quotient was lower than previous releases, and Dumbing Up<\/em> paled particularly when put up against Egyptology<\/em>, the album that (for my money) was the most consistently-great set of songs Wallinger had ever turned out.<\/p>\n In 2001, Karl Wallinger had suffered an aneurysm that left him debilitated (he would successfully fight his way back to health), so it’s safe to say he had other fish to fry, as it were. Dumbing Up<\/em> would be reissued with different artwork and other tweaks in 2006, and a best-of Best of Show<\/em> would follow in 2007, but for all intents and purposes World Party had faded from the pop music radar. Yet a high-profile set at the 2006 Bonnaroo Festival reminded those who paid attention that Wallinger was far from a spent force creatively. A 2011 date at SXSW reinforced that point, but no new music was (yet) forthcoming.<\/p>\n But now in 2012 we have, sort of, new music from World Party. Arkeology<\/em> is a 5CD set that spans the entire history of the band, from the mid-80s to (one supposes) present-day. With a title that’s a play on the Beatles<\/strong>‘ Anthology<\/em>, this set takes a similar (but not identical) approach. The set includes seventy tracks, very few of which have seen official release before now.<\/p>\n With but one exception, these aren’t demos. Every track on Arkeology<\/em> is a fully-finished studio recording or live performance (about a quarter of Arkeology<\/em>‘s tracks are live versions). With the exception of a stray track that has previously been released (say, a cover of the Beatles’ \u201cHappiness is a Warm Gun\u201d from World Party’s 1991 Thank You World<\/em> EP), the music on Arkeology<\/em> will be new to all but the most hardcore of fans.<\/p>\n Even someone such as myself \u2013 the sort of person who has a stack of World Party bootleg concert recordings and dozens of b-sides, alternate mixes and (still) unreleased tracks \u2013 there’s a lot to love on Arkeology<\/em>. Start to finish, the collection sounds and plays more like a purpose-made album than a collection of odds and sods.<\/p>\n There are a few surprises throughout. On the first disc, a suitably high-energy of Little Richard<\/strong>‘s \u201cLucille\u201d illustrates what World Party sounds like with saxes. Less surprisingly, the version owes a lot to the manner in which Paul McCartney<\/strong> has covered the song. \u201cThe Good Old Human Race\u201d also recalls McCartney, in his early 20th<\/sup> century retro mode; the Rudy Vallee<\/strong>-styled soft shoe song is reminiscent of \u201cHoney Pie\u201d and Wings<\/strong>‘ \u201cBaby’s Request.\u201d (Wallinger’s background as musical director for stage shows is sometimes forgotten, but it’s clear that he brought a lot to that setting, and those production and arrangement values have remained with him.)<\/p>\n No less than two live versions of \u201cPut the Message in the Box\u201d are on Arkeology<\/em>, and fans will need both, as they’re quite different from one another; each brings out different endearing qualities of the song. Two live versions of \u201cShip of Fools\u201d are here for good measure as well. Again, different. One of them takes the song places that the studio version didn’t go, leaving behind the 80s production trappings of the original and bringing out its timeless qualities. Woo-hoo-hoo indeed.<\/p>\n As can be expected, there are a few throwaways on the set, but very few: \u201cSilly Song\u201d runs a mere thirty-nine seconds, and \u201cDe Ho De Hay\u201d is under a minute, so they get a pass. A note-for-note recreation of McCartney’s \u201cMan We Was Lonely\u201d shows Wallinger’s oft-underrated skills as a musical mimic of the first order. On cuts like \u201cWorld Groove\/Mind Guerilla\u201d and an outtake version of \u201cWhat is Love All About,\u201d Wallinger sounds like a Welsh version of Prince<\/strong>. And on the giddily ironic and topical-when-recorded \u201cKuwait City\u201d the band conjures surf-and-stock era Beach Boys<\/strong>. \u201cLootin’ and-a-shootin’…ooo wee.\u201d Hysterical.<\/p>\n A transcendent live version of the shoulda-been-a-huge-hit ballad \u201cShe’s the One\u201d is a highlight. Wallinger’s facility at working in funk, r&b (\u201cDo What I Want,\u201d the Detroit-flavored instro \u201cIt Ain’t Gonna Work\u201d), psych, folk, rock and pop are all on full display. World Party lays down a thick groove with \u201cThis is Your World Speaking,\u201d in which they synthesize all of their influences to create something that \u2013 in the end \u2013 sounds like nothing so much as…World Party. \u201cWe Are the Ones\u201d is an embryonic version of \u201cCurse of the Mummy’s Tomb\u201d from Egyptology<\/em>. Well, actually, it’s not: it’s a wholly different song that’s built upon the descending riff that forms the centerpiece of the song.<\/p>\n The advance of Arkeology<\/em> (the album-proper comes out in mid-April 2012) doesn’t provide detailed track info, so it’s hard to ascertain when most of these tracks were started or finished. But the (here’s that word again) timeless quality of World Party’s music means that most any of the songs on Arkeology<\/em> could have been added to any of their previous studio albums, and wouldn’t have seemed out of place.<\/p>\n The hardest-of-hardcore fan (me!) could, I suppose, take issue with some of the selections, wondering aloud why it doesn’t include ace covers of John Lennon<\/strong>‘s \u201c#9 Dream,\u201d and Beatles classics like \u201cNowhere Man,\u201d \u201cAll You Need is Love,\u201d \u201cPenny Lane\u201d and \u201cMartha My Dear\u201d (not to mention \u201cWorld Without Love\u201d). But (a) that’s quibbling, since Arkeology<\/em> as it exists is filled with riches and (b) I have all those ultra-rare tracks on various CDRs anyway. Moreover, we get \u201cFixing a Hole\u201d from Sgt. Pepper<\/em>, a thrilling \u201cDear Prudence\u201d \u2013 one that takes the song in a logical and lovely direction \u2013 and a live cover of Sly and the Family Stone<\/strong>‘s \u201cStand.\u201d And much more besides.<\/p>\n With Arkeology<\/em>, Karl Wallinger and World Party have given us plenty to savor (and at a bargain price). But let’s hope that this isn’t some sort of parting shot, and that there’s much more to come. I suspect there is.<\/p>\n And I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if one of those future songs forces me off the road once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Karl Wallinger forced my car off the road. Really, he did. It was sometime in 1990; I was driving in the car with my then-wife and newborn daughter as passengers. 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