Dean Rouch and Michael Mayer - Face of the Wind (USA, 1983)

Sometimes we fall in love with a record for no apparent reason, knowing it's not highly inventive or beautiful or impressive to the majority, like the Wolfgang Schmidt - Wolfhound I shared before in the past. Though it may seem average to you when you hear it, I don't want anyone to pass up the opportunity for this because it has some very wryly individual, interesting tracks, particularly the two prayers that close out each side.

As usual this was a discovery of the mighty osurec who first ripped this virtually unknown item some years back.  Side a is written by Dean Rouch (not Rough as it sometimes appears), and side b by Michael Mayer; the two sound very similar though.  Even the cover has a DIY charm to it, don't be surprised to hear it was Rouch who was responsible for the (exquisite?) drawing.  I love the lyrics too, the highly priceless zeitgeist comment: "I don't want to die in a nuclear war" from the A2 song "You're a Bitch" is exemplary--  try as I might I can't figure out how the title and the nuclear war reference fit together--  and pay attention to what Mayer is saying in his "Pentagon Prayer," (track B4) -- it's just wonderful.  (How it takes me back to those wonderful cold war days of Star Wars and SDI, ballistic intercontinental missiles, reaganomics and air traffic controller strikes, the 'evil empire', wall street masters of the universe and deregulation, and "it's morning again in America" -- which actually was devised years later as someone once corrected me -- doesn't matter, it's still clear by now that faint gloaming was really the last burst of energy at the end of a long day to which we now are turning in for a sleepless night.)

"When your peaceful nighttime silence explodes through a nuclear dawn
load the heart with errors and we can learn to sing along
and when the nuclear winds do come cold and your best friends are blowing away
perhaps if you can hold on to come and fight another day"
 --from " Pentagon Prayer "

The competence of the musicians is without question, all instruments are played beautifully with a lot of layered textures involving synths and guitar runs and scales in the arrangements.  Of course I'm not crazy about the silly Island song that starts off side b, nor the mandolin piece, but you couldn't expect a solid record from beginning to end at this late stage in the hunting game.

I will sample the most progressive tracks, the last song on side a which is a "power prayer,"  and the third song on side b, "Fly".
A4:



B3:



I would really love to hear from these guys to know what their thoughts are about this utterly unknown and lost private pressing, because I just adore it.  No chance it will score priority 2 on the cd reissue wishlist but why can't we see more records like this rereleased for 20 dollars, so we don't have to hunt down the vinyl and pay an arm and a leg for it to some random person in an auction?