Barry Adamson
Know Where to Run

No way, guys. Barry Adamson is definitely a big son of a bitch. After taking his first steps in the city of Manchester, where he was born in the late fifties, and starting with his involvement in the post-punk scene, he has been part of a slew of projects and collaborations that it would be objectively impossible to try to mention them all. I would surely forget some. The most famous are probably those with the post-punk band Magazine, formed by Howard Devoto after leaving the Buzzcocks, as well as the long and fruitful collaboration with Nick Cave starting from the Birthday Party and then joining the Bad Seeds, a band he recently rejoined for the recordings of 'Push the Sky Away' in 2013.

Obviously, all this would be objectively too little to describe the career of a musician and producer who, among other things, has also been involved for years in a solo career and has released several albums since the late eighties, all influenced by different musical genres, starting from post-punk and electronics to expanding into soul and acid jazz.

Before talking about this album, it's important to clarify that I see more than a connection, a real continuity between this new album, 'Know Where To Run' (Central Control), and the previous 'I Will Set You Free', which Barry had released in 2012. By mixing different influences and musical genres, Barry Adamson has achieved his own personal style and demonstrated in a way, if necessary, that he's not just a good, excellent musician, but possesses important artistic qualities and is a good composer and even an excellent singer.

'Know Where To Run' was recorded at the Church Road Recording Company in Brighton and was produced by Barry himself with Paul Pascoe. The material was further reworked and mixed at Dean Street Studios. As I said before, we must necessarily consider this album in the context of everything Adamson has done previously in his career, and in this sense, we can clearly see how this is an overcoming of all his past works up to the recording of this new album, which we could even define as a real bomb given the number of explosive elements it contains.

Barry is a tough guy, he doesn't give a damn if someone might consider his music and sound as something easy-listening or commercial. 'Cine City', 'Up in the Air', 'Death Takes a Holiday' are all songs that combine the groovy sound of the bass with rhythms derived from soul and that ultimately flow into sounds we could easily recognize as pop music. The effect of this mix is devastating, in the sense that, as if in the grip of a voodoo rhythm, the listener begins to move and dance, shaking their hips and unable to stop for any reason in the world.

But there's much more in this album. Always passionate about all the music revolving around Motown, Barry recycles some of these sounds in tracks like 'Mr Greed'. 'Evil Kind' is a ballad in the style of Frank Sinatra and where he showcases his excellent skills as a vocalist and performer, and the same goes for 'Come Away', where his voice, accompanied by an electric organ, sounds incredibly like that of his old partner in crime Nick Cave.

'Texas Crash' is another track with an engaging sound that mixes rock and roll music with soul and acid jazz, while 'In Other Worlds', the first song on the album, could fit perfectly on a John Carpenter record, more so, he could very well use the track as a soundtrack for one of his films.

What to say? There are a lot of interesting aspects in this album, which is heavily influenced by the so-called black culture and seeks to draw in terms of music every possible content of it starting from the derivations of the old Mississippi blues to soul music and jazz culture. Not for this reason, it's evident, the songs appear in some way disconnected from each other. On the contrary. There is a great white line that we can clearly follow from the beginning to the end of the record on an ideal journey to then find ourselves in the middle of the road. In a song from the album, 'Street Hassle', Lou Reed sang, 'I Wanna Be Black', and Lou, he really wanted to be black. The fact is, he was born and raised in a middle-class Jewish family and had never really accepted this situation, and I think this thing is evident if you try to listen to his entire and for me particularly troubled discography. But Lou Reed was rock and roll, and he was rock and roll precisely for this reason. He was practically never at the top when it came to the records he released and that's because he somehow hid from himself or couldn't find himself. And this is clearly not some kind of criticism I want to make of the man and artist Lou Reed. If you think this, you are wrong. More than anything, I would say that it's probably why I consider him as the greatest rock star of all time: because he embodied, has embodied in himself every possible contradiction and lived this thing violently on his very skin.

A lot of time has passed since then, 'Street Hassle' in fact came out in the seventies and in some way also referred to the desire to mix different genres including disco and black soul music of the seventies and the typical sounds of Motown: it was an experiment more or less successful, even if, come on, we're talking about Lou Reed. I'm sure he certainly didn't show his full potential even on this occasion. On the other hand, I want to consider this Barry Adamson album as an overcoming of some of these contradictions. Barry doesn't care about being white instead of black. He's a man of his generation and as such perhaps possesses greater awareness, doesn’t feel any particular sense of guilt, knowing that this would serve no purpose other than to lead him down the wrong path. Most importantly, what really matters, is that Barry Adamson has soul and rhythm and blues in his veins, give this album a listen and even if afterward you don't know which way to turn and start running, at least maybe you'll understand what we're talking about.