Cult acts are hilarious in that they are lauded for exuding mystery. I tend enjoy cult acts because they have a great story. Scott Walker has both of these. What he doesn’t have is a lot of fans of his sole recording of the 1980’s, Climate of Hunter.

The textures are bizarre and rather troubling at first. The fretless bass is employed as a true dated-1980’s weapon, although I wonder if it’s actually a Chapman stick. The drums range from tinny electronic snaps to richly EQ’ed full drum kits.

The strings are of course the name of the game here, as they usually are on Walker’s outings. Songs like “Rawhide” and “Sleepwalker’s Woman” are incredibly haunting as the arrangements calls for blocks of chords who quiver in microtonal bliss.

Otherwise, keyboards are used to create and capture sonic irregularities. Most songs contain one or multiple drones that, like the strings, drift in and out of pitch, creating a hazy but menacing backdrop to Scott’s words. Horns are employed in a similar manner, rarely suloing in the traditional sense, such as Evan Parker’s incredible wall of saxophone bleats on “Song 6.”

This is an incredibly diverse album, one that shares haunting atmospherics with chart-teasing promise (the Billy Ocean-duet “Song 3″), and ends with a mournful blues number, Walker’s somber tale of a drifter set to Mark Knopfler’s solo acoustic guitar.

I dug this set, as it connected with his old solo work while pointing firmly in the direction of his future endeavors. Grab this if you can find it and are also obsessed with Senor Walker.