Fionn Regan – Be Good Or Be Gone
Nora: “The’ agony I’m in since he left me has thrust away every rough thing he done, an’ every unkind word he spoke; only th’ blossoms that grew out of our lives are before me now; shakin’ their colours before me face, an’ breathin’ their sweet scent on every thought springin’ up in me mind, till, sometimes, Mrs Gogan, sometimes I think I’m going mad!” [Art by Santiago Rusinol, words by Sean O’Casey, music by Fionn Regan.]
Karen O, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Immigrant Song
In its beginning, in its poverty, “Immigrant Song” tells us of droning back alley sounds, their violent subtleties, and raiding rhythms lugubriously stylised with thrilling drums and pedal driven guitar. It’s an entrance theme for the boxer, the momentarily fallen, and the certain-to-be triumphant. The song is character building, playing on O’s vocals strikingly abating the rash inflections of the instrumental – the music itself an unexpected battle, with Karen’s sturdy pronouncements prying away the intractable instrumentation and its flailing complete ownership; the war then descending, spiralling head bound towards conclusions of gigantic guitar notation. “Immigrant Song” runs spritely along with brash dynamism. [The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.]
Peter Gabriel – Shock The Monkey
Gabriel’s “Shock The Money” is a thick crust – the kind I save for last – riding bareback on the complete desertion of normalcy and popular tenderness that so usually accompanies POP!, wafting in the cool breeze of the keenest of tendencies, on course towards engorged intricacies and colourful palettes. Ah, it’s a song! Oh, it’s so pleasant. And so are the occasional splutters of coughed “Shock!” that stick out like the suckable sore thumbs of “Monkey”’s gut bass. At best your ears will propel outwards from reality, impelled towards these fresh and lush surroundings of rapacious layers of sound. At its worst the experience of listening is still very much unlikely to leave you aghast, writhing with melancholy for lost minutes. After all, it’s just a song. You, “You throw your pearls before the swine.” [Art by Julien Pacaud. PG4.]
Morrissey – The National Front Disco
Morrissey is a racist and haven’t you heard it? It’s in everything he writes (in the papers, too), and most noticeably here, amongst the noise and crashes of Alain Whyte’s structured hysteria, amongst the forever unplaced inverted commas in the chant-like “England for the English.” And that was his first fault. Trusting the listener to hear the quotation marks in “England for the English”, trusting them to hear a voice not of Morrissey’s but of the countless Davids and their cat calls. Who writes like this anymore? Who writes with risk? Who writes for anything but for the flow of syllabic tongue run off; the dribble for the bleating sheep sing-along?
David, a young boy breeching the walls of manhood, succumbs to the promises of the far-right National Front, sharing in the vitriol for his land in is current state, the passing of its idolised commonality, the contrary flags of neighbours, and that lamentable howl of longing for what once was – or, most probably, the imagining of the ‘once was’. (“There’s a county, you don’t live there, but one day you would like to.”) It’s likely he’s found within the role model not available elsewhere to him. And that is the story.
This is not a call to arms. It’s hardly even shared sentiment on Morrissey’s behalf. It’s a study of those who have slipped into the noose. This is a bemoaning for those poor entranced fools, the stolen ones (“your friends all say” / “your mum says”), with their stench of sexual frustration, now so misplaced in their home and scornful. Twenty years on, “the National Front Disco” may now finally have more to offer in way of discussion than accusation – to be applied to all lands. “Your mum says, “I’ve lost my boy”, but she should know why you’ve gone because again and again you’ve explained.” Morrissey once told Whyte during a writing session for “the National Front Disco” that, “you’re not going to like the title.” There’s the give-away. The title held the intention for scandal, but it’s flesh and background and thrust hadn’t. He did not say ‘you’re not going to like the sentiment, the position, the posture of persuasion’. No, Morrissey is no racist. He’s a storyteller, and if he catches you suggesting differ he’ll poke your eye out with his Jack. [Your Arsenal.]
.jpg)
College – A Real Hero (feat. Electric Youth)
I’ve found that selective electronic music now satisfies my every plea for a soundscape, without fail, without whimper. Vibrant palettes of sound frisking on the borders of the otherworldly, aiding only the most expressive of vocal deliveries. The fire proof blend of the banal and the gut. “A Real Hero” is a song whose simplicity is just about enough. The horizon isn’t dreamt of, nor are there radio looped beats so obtrusive as to quench brewing enjoyment. To its benefit, it falters in the demand of one’s attention, unlike the hypnotic crush of any offshore wash. There’s timely shimmering detail in the offing, enough to make content event the most ardent of listener. The cold and steady layering of keyboard is apt staging to a voice sophronized to the point of definite believability. This voice, part sole provider of emotion, part synth actress, conquers the chorus, with the contorting cadences of her voice so sensational and essential to the quashing of synth and its fakery. A voice so sultry yet all at once so explosive. “You have proved to be a real human being and a real hero.” [155 people or more.]
Big Hard Excellent Fish – Imperfect List
Adolf Hitler, Mike Gatting, Terry and June, fucking-bastard Thatcher, insincere social climate of mixed origin, overdose, Scouse impersonators, macho dick-head, Bonnie Langford, poll tax, Neighbours, lost keys, phoney friend, the Royal Family, Stock Aitken and Waterman, heartbreaking lying friend, smiling Judas, Myra Hindley, acid rain, stinking rich female in furs, disloyal lover, wife and child beater, drunken abuser, racist, bully, the Sun newspaper, AIDS inventor, Leon Brittan, all nonsense, massive-massive oilslick, loneliness, cancer, hard cold fish, hunger, greed, imperfect list, gut-wrenching disappointment, homeless, evil gossiping fashion bastard, Radio 1, tasteless A&R wanker, Nurse Ratched, the Tory invention of the non-working class, cold turkey, Mr. Jesse Helms, Thatcher coccyx, Hillsborough, weird British judges, depression, apartheid, J. Edgar Hoover, John Lennon’s murder, Hiroshima, anyone’s murder, Vietnam, the breakdown of the NHS, the bomb, Heysel stadium, Police harassment, the death of the rain forest, the Troubles, red-necks, the Clan, rape, imprisonment of innocents, the all-American way, the sending off of Len Shackleton, red sock in the white washing, Nancy’s term, Tienanmen square, Ronnie’s term, sexual harassment, Jimmy Tarbuck, mile long checkout queue, sick baby, Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment, miscarriage. Where were you? [Amazon.]
Summer Camp – Better Off Without You
She had made all those men so alive, hadn’t she? So miserable, true, so aching, true, and breathing with limps, but didn’t the blood march so strong in their channels? They stuttered after her like full hearts on the brink of infidelity, their guts warped by nervous fuzz. They had dressed up for her in their dreams – of this she was aware. In turn, she taught them loneliness of a sidewalk depth, a reality often cloaked – made fair – by the arousal of their billboard joy days and filthy moments rising, like mucky suns. Those men and their lugubrious smiles. The liars of romance with this misbegotten lover. [Pledge Music.]
