Julian Cope
Revolutionary Suicide

LA RECENSIONE

You portrayed yourself as the eternal black sheep, like a bard just steps from the abyss. You have been the shaman oscillating between two worlds, the dwarf on the shoulders of a giant. Only that for this stuff, you need a strong constitution. You must always stay on the horse and keep a spare armor in the closet.

Lucky for you, you belong to Iggy's breed. And, moreover, you're badass, incredibly badass.

After all, surviving youth is an art. It is, say the masters, about finding the right attire or, more simply, not being entirely awful.

Some manage it, Andy, for instance, looks like Gyro Gearloose, Martin a scarecrow, Robyn quite the stud. However, among them all, Julian, you're the most together. You look like a warrior, damn, a superhero, a kind of Uhr punk hippie.

How else could you have made an album like this? Twenty years from Peggy, thirty from Fried. How?

Yes, Fried. Had you stopped there, or recorded another twenty identical albums, no one would have said anything. But no, after a period somewhat like this, when the plan, I imagine, was still to become a pop star, you started with the monstre albums, those that, good or not, always have something that exceeds.

It must be a bit like that story of Eros told in the Symposium. Eros is not a great god; Eros is the son of Poverty, or perhaps of Need. A magical loser, a hyper-connected guy, one driven by necessity and always searching.

Eros, in short, is someone like you.

And anyway, how is it that the more the years pass, the more you become a barricader? What are you saying? All revolutionaries are doomed? Is that why you've become a revolutionary too? After all, foundations are laid on the impossible, and even punk had to kill itself to survive. The Druid Arch's work is through the ages of ages.

And so: see you in a thousand years, dear Julian...

…............................................

“Revolutionary suicide”

For starters, here are two hyper freak ballads and a shamanic rite in the woods...The kraut side of the moon, the weird scene of the folk...

Track one is a beautiful bucolic thing wrapped in an almost pop sheen that makes it very sweet and magnifies its transcendent quality. The sun of a spring morning and a kind of devotion...

Track three is a fabulous epic folk. A tale of atrocities on four torn guitar chords + accordion + bass drum hits. Imagine a crescendo of the kind that never actually crescendos. Except that after so many sparks, we're all around the fire crying. The peak of intensity comes at minute ten, but the orgasm (final chorus and synth blasts) is long-lasting and, to quote Tiresias, even feminine...

“Heartbreaking and beautiful,” says the Quiet one, and the Quiet one knows his stuff.

Track eleven is the rite, and what it says is “destroy religion.” In Cope's intentions, it should be something like Amon Duul I + William Blake on lead vocals. And let's say it couldn't be put better than that...

One, three, and eleven are the heart of the album and alone make up almost forty minutes. However, the rest also works and works a lot.

The pop Cope works. The combat folk turned “Skellington” works. The vintage electronics work. The Roxy Music-style crooning works. The tricks and all the oddities work.

I repeat: see you in a thousand years...

Trallallà...