Bryan Ferry: Mamouna (Deluxe) Album Review

When Bryan Ferry lamented, in 1973’s “Mother of Pearl,” “If you’re looking for love in a looking glass world/It’s pretty hard to find,” he had not reckoned with how easy the looking would become. Twenty years later, on the cusp of his fifties, the former Roxy Music singer-songwriter released the most insular solo album of his career. He had already exhausted the patience of some reviewers. “Ferry seems increasingly like Narcissus, enraptured by his own reflection in the pond—and the bottomless depth below,” Rolling Stone’s Anthony DeCurtis hissed about 1987’s Bête Noire.

Yet to gaze so intently at oneself bespeaks not just narcissism but also confidence. Ferry had spectacular hair and he knew it. Teased and moistened by expert hands, Mamouna is the album equivalent of Ferry’s bangs: singular, an occasion for envy and amusement, an essential component of his mythos—and often genuinely beautiful. This three-disc set includes that 1994 album; previously unreleased tracks Ferry had recorded for a project called Horoscope; and demos, some of which date back to 1989. “The demos I do tend to become the masters,” he explained to Creem in 1993. “They’re on the same tape, and more foliage just grows around them.” Of course the package is excessive—do Ferry fans expect minimalism? He’s a foliage guy.

Horoscope was meant to be Ferry’s new album. He fucked up: He should’ve known not to release the title before the product. That old devil, writer’s block, paralyzed him; the lyrics, which he’d spent years paring down to pointillist suggestion, were a problem. He had no manager and no producer. For a hoarder confronted by the possibilities of 56-track recording, it must’ve been like Narcissus walking into a funhouse. Flailing, he resorted to a tested strategy: He and new producer Robin Trower, of Procol Harum, knocked out a covers album called Taxi, notable for a shivery essential version of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” and an “All Tomorrow’s Parties” whose lounge-pop vibes might’ve birthed Air. Rejuvenated, he returned to his original material, now called Mamouna, Arabic for good luck, of which he’d been in short supply.