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Rating:
Julian was just what we needed, just what we needed. I swear, I can’t understand anything anymore…
Simply nothing.
To start with, Susanna now makes colorful music, I don't know, she says she's read a book and babbles things like: "Okay with the gothic, okay with everything, but have you ever taken a dive into a kaleidoscope? No? So what are you waiting for, fools?"
And Roberto, well Roberto has taken up pop, a crooked, moody, bizarre thing, all you want, but in the end, it remains pop, right? Moreover, he also doesn't joke about colors, actually, he’s even worse than Susanna. So what are we doing here?
Then there are the Rossis, those guys who scatter flowers everywhere and make songs that could be described as Oscar Wilde meets jingle jangle. But come on, are you kidding me? Proposing those shiny little guitars to us!!! That sort of spring!!!
But damn it, didn’t everyone say that cinema was better in black and white? That a lullaby beats a nursery rhyme ten to zero? That black is cool and, above all, slimming?
I hope you don't expect me and my crew to redo our wardrobe? We are beautiful, damn it, a cloudiness between black and gray. Something, like, four or five Rokerilla covers hanging on the wall.
Oh Lulù, what can you do, style requires continuous refresher courses.
...
We stay in this bar where instead of absinthe they serve a slimy green broth.
We are here half relaxed/half nervous, clinging/clambering to an abstruse concept of self-proclaimed aristocracy, aware, I guess, of just spouting nonsense.
Standing out are Aris, anti-melodic master of elegance and Penazzi, a cube-shaped being irrigated by finesse.
Then, in the center of a swarm of delightful roundettes skewered in black, a couple of dreamily wicked bombshells reign, offering free advice on decisive topics such as dark fashion and etiquette.
Scattered through the streams of secondary tables sit shabby maîtres à penser specializing in assorted subjects: samurai ethics, cemetery aesthetics, Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil soaked in molten butter.
In short, quintals, indeed tons of attitude, desperately trying to be cool.
Blowing over this strange sky is music that drives everyone crazy: Joy Division, P.I.L, Bauhaus, Siouxie, Cure, A Certain Ratio. Our music, damn it.
So what the hell does this Julian want? And how dare the sun peep through our incredibly cool cloudiness?
Relax, luludia, relax.
Do you like sickly music, shadow/psychosis/anguish, and so on? Then don't worry. This sun is not exactly the picture of health…
No?
No.
...
Julian is the kind of guy who risked ending up in girls' diaries among little hearts and pink clouds, only he then took too much acid.
Memories of Top of the Pops with him walking on the piano fearing being sucked in. Better change the air...
He then takes refuge in his wild native village, the hills are in bloom, but people look at him badly. He moves on to amphetamines and feeds on Mars bars bought at the gas station.
The first masterpiece he releases is “World Shut Your Mouth,” a little thing suspended between post-punk sharpness, sixties freshness, and a disoriented pop instinct. It's about treacherous paths walked at an uneven pace between wild speed and bewildered elegance, one moment you’re terribly cool, the next you crash into the elegy.
Well, “World Shut Your Mouth” is an album that should blow the world away, but what happens is almost less than nothing. He feels “fried,” but he’s a strange fish and, despite the pan and the boiling oil, continues to flounder unperturbed.
And then, even if people continue to look at him askance, he, in response, buys a turtle shell from a junk dealer, then goes to live under it, sheltered from assholes and philistines.
The world from there is an out-of-tune motif, a cross between bliss and melancholy. “oh no, don’t throw me out, I have nowhere to go, waking hours are the loneliest for gloomy boys like me”...
A few months pass and “Fried” comes out and “Fried” goes beyond...
Imagine a psychedelia of enormous gentleness, aristocratic and wild. Julian sings in that very “long live England” way, half Kevin Ayers and half “I wouldn’t know who at the moment.” A perfect thing for all the tattered ones with a quarter of nobility.
Not satisfied, he also throws in the oboe, a damn wonderful chamber machine, as if to say, damn, we’re so high, but also stylized and pastoral to the core. Like bumping into the soft wall of a spring morning. Like the smile of the madman is a cushion of lazy clouds, a thin crack in the air.
Something “elegant and vulnerable.” A subtle vibration that captures the light, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry or plaster a silly smile on your face.
Then it’s not even over, this is just the ballad side. There's also the garage turned psych, there's the Morrison-esque howl, there's the brilliant jangle. There’s even the potential hit, that “Sunspots,” the opening and closing theme of our nights back then. Needless to say, though, that hit didn't happen…
…
Then, well, our leaden dark goths soon changed their minds. The fact that one is not unyielding is always a good thing.
Trallallà...
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 Reynard the Fox (06:14)
Hey in the pouring rain
When the smell of terror brings a thousand eyes
The red men come again
They kill my children and they kill my wife
And then they leave me bleeding
Family dead, just freaking out bleeding
Stoned in the gutter
Empty of my colour
I'm fried, fried, ticking in the side
Body twitched from side to side
I'm fried, fried, ticking in the side
Body twitched from side to side
Run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
You've got to run for an hour and you're still not done
You've got to run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
Away, away, away, away, away
Hey in the ice and snow
When the call up sounds to the real in deed
But do you really wanna know
How we rode into freedom on whimsy and greed?
And they said your time is over
I don't see any gallant calls
I don't see an inch of reflex
'cept to leave me bleeding
Bleeding, bleeding, bleeding
I'm fried, fried, ticking in the side
Body twitched from side to side
I'm fried, fried, ticking in the side
Body twitched from side to side
Run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
You've got to run for an hour and you're still not done
Run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
Away, away, away
Run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
You've got to run for an hour and you're still not done
Run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
Away, away, away, away, away
Run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
You've got to run for an hour and you're still not done
Run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
Away, away, away
Run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
You've got to run for an hour and you're still not done
Run, run, Reynard, run, run, run
Away, away, away, away, away
Reynard left and went to Warwickshire, to a mound near a railway line,
with canals and a freezing swamp. He climbs high up above the countryside
and breathes freely. To the south he could see Polesworth, and to the
north he could just make out the ruins of the priory where Joss and I
played cricket as children. We were only three miles away, probably drinking
tea and talking,
(Have you heard about the orphan, sitting by the coffin)
at the same time as he was taking the stanley knife out of
the bag. He pushed the point into his stomach,
(His Father's not a sinner no more)
until the light shone right
through. And then he reached down, and he took the bag.
It's a plastic bag
With plastic handles
And plastic sides
and
and
And
ANd
AND
HE SPILLED HIS GUTS ALL OVER THE STAGE
HE SPILLED HIS GUTS ALL OVER THE STAGE
02 Bill Drummond Said (02:28)
Give me one good reason why I shouldn't win
(Bill Drummond said, Bill Drummond said)
If a falling leaf can't help my suffering
(Bill Drummond said, Bill Drummond said)
And I sat around my feet,
to teach me how to float
"Get out" she cried,
in the minute she died
He folded up her coat
And the family cried,
go spinning 'cross the sky
(Bill Drummond said, Bill Drummond said)
If I sit and pray, my Christmas tree will die
(Bill Drummond said, Bill Drummond said)
And if his life gets out of hand
And if his face turns blue
These things are sent to try us
And what more can we do?
And then he walked around my garden
And sniffed around my coat
And then I looked around to see him
His hands around her throat
(Bill Drummond said, Bill Drummond said)
If a falling leaf can't help me
(Bill Drummond said, Bill Drummond said)
If a falling leaf can't help me
(Bill Drummond said, Bill Drummond said)
If a falling leaf can't help me
(Bill Drummond said, Bill Drummond said)
If a falling leaf can't help me
05 Sunspots (05:14)
Sunspots changing glares
Walking ‘round with my very best friend
I’ve got a love song in my head
Strolling ‘round with my very best friend
I look back but I don’t see
Walking round with my very best friend
She looks good--fine to me
I’m in love with my very best friend
And eeeeyoooo, it goes away
And eeeeyoooo, it goes away
Sunspots changing gear
Driving ‘round with my very best friend
I gotta love song in my head
Holding on to my very best friend
We look back but I can’t see
Moving on with my very best friend
She looks good--fine to me
I’m in love with my very best friend
Eeeeyoooo, it goes away
And eeeeyoooo, it goes away
And eeeeyoooo, it goes away
And eeeeyoooo, it goes away
Way, way, way!
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By f.factor
"The saga of 'Reynard The Fox' opens the first side, and it’s immediately pure psychedelia on solid POP MELODY."
No Contest: fivefifths!
