Guitars!
Songs! Poignant English psych-pop that your milkman can whistle!
An album that's been a
soundtrack to my daily commute over the last few weeks is this gem by
Joss Cope released on the ever reliable Gare du Nord label. Despite
being recorded in Helsinki with a group of Finnish musicians it's as
English as they come, due to Cope's knack of capturing the
melancholy, humdrum observation and poignant humour that forms our
much lauded national psyche. I should mention at this point that Joss
is the brother of Julian Cope, so the shared upbringing, genes and
collection of 45s must have fed into his worldview. Anyway that's
enough about that, who wants to be compared to their elder sibling.
Not me, so I ain't gonna do that here!
If you wanted to
pigeonhole Unrequited Lullabies with a genre, we can call it
guitar-driven psychedelic pop. But really it's all about the songs
which have a point, a poignancy and are some of the most melodically
memorable I've had the pleasure of hearing in recent months. 'Turned
Out Nice Again' captures the sadness masked by everyday small-talk.
It's just one example of how, in a similar way to someone like Robyn
Hitchcock, mixes kitchen-sink ordinariness with cosmic observation.
Cope also has a
pleasing way with words, twisting and adapting everyday idioms and
sayings, - “drowning in a sea of familiar faces”. He also comes
up with succinct and pleasing couplets throughout that seem to
capture something of where we are now as a species and a society. It
all makes for intelligent and literate pop that even references
Rudyard Kipling's If on
'Triumph or Disaster'. Don't let that fool you into thinking it's a
heavy ride, it's as fun as they come and the tunes will be swirling
round your head long after the disc is out the drive (other formats
are available but you catch my drift!)
Click here for Gare Du
Nord Records on Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment