Martin Newell
The Greatest Living Englishman

With that look halfway between a hawk and a scarecrow, the scruffy rockstar appearance is certainly not lacking in you. And even for a genius, all things considered, you're doing well: since the late seventies, in fact, you've been serving us a fresh and sparkling pop, sometimes leaning wave, sometimes devoted to the sixties. Not to mention the overflowing creativity, ah, writing fifteen songs a day wasn't enough, no, heaven forbid. So you started writing poetry and you're even thinking about your first autobiography. Yet, despite this creative Stakhanovism, no one takes notice of you. After all, it's nothing new. You did the glam, the progressive, you almost risked joining the Damned, you've created some of the most perfect pop machines ever, and yet nothing. And it's starting to bother you a little, like, for once you'd like to go to the pub and flaunt some results instead of just saying that in Japan and France you're a cult musician. Also because being a cult musician in Japan and France means, in fact, being a gardener in England.

And anyway, it's not just that, it's also that all your friends are doing better than you: the captain is parading his glory around, Lol is a very light and carefree cloud, Giles is in New York interviewing Lou Reed, and Nelson is on tour with the New Model Army. You, on the other hand, are really quite down. Little by little though, you start to take that kind of humiliation almost in a zen way and transform that darkness into a little light that tells you to reset everything. So for a while, you become a sort of soul gardener, and instead of using the spade to till the soil, you use it to throw the trash out of your brain.

Then one fine day, you meet an enlightened record executive who not only offers you the chance to record an album but also has the brilliant idea of involving Andy Partridge for the production. The thing, in truth, is not very simple; there are quite a few budget problems, a third of what would be needed, but everything is resolved by agreeing with Andy himself to record in his garden studio in Swindon. Besides, he is also quite down, going through a divorce, and the XTC ship is "stuck in the ice." Andy is especially an admirer of your poetry and, before this "affair," once called you to propose an exchange: your second book of poems for a copy of "Nonsuch," the latest of XTC.

Anyway, what happens afterward is that, rather pumped, you play him the demos of about twenty songs, ultra-refined stuff you’re super confident about. Andy listens and tells you, "Martin, here at most we have half an album, couldn’t you write a few more songs?" Now, you could have gotten angry, but instead, you take it well. You write those damn other songs because you understand that you are working with someone who has a freaking bat's ear. Never mind if you're not a studio maniac and if your things turn out better a bit messy. For once, you will give up the grace of the error, the limping step, and the cicadas’ chirping. After all, you are recording a pop classic for the times to come, do you realize, you amateur goofball? Speaking of the evenings at the Swindon pub where the volcano that replaced your brain would blaze (ah, to be a gnat and listen to your conversations!!!) there’s nothing left but to close this little story with the most unexpected of happy endings. So, gentlemen, enjoy with me our scarecrow/hawk as he enters the pub with a copy of Rolling Stones in hand, reviewing the album and giving it four out of five stars. The first Rolling Stones review in twenty years of an honorable career!!! Oh shit, they're all there with their mouths open. Stop.

"The greatest living Englishman"... A freaking magic lantern and an alternation of nineteenth-century postcards and Ray Davies-style theater, my God, it’s all so darned English. Ah gentlemen, pop comes from the dawn of time and by now it’s nothing but a kind of almost folk for overgrown children. Not only that, you can feel it, light, actually very light, a kind of fragrance that I really can’t find the words for. Then I find a guy online who describes it as a caramel scent vaguely opiated, and damn, the image hits me like an epiphany. Nice to know I'm not the only crazy one. And anyway, it starts with the graceful melancholy of a hyper-lived dandy and continues, and here I quote dear Martin himself, with the romantic timelessness of an English village in autumn, something like walking along a narrow road on a windy day. But who is the hungry boy with the drooping head? And why, Martin, does he say he is a ghost?

Maybe I got lost, and then let’s follow the breadcrumbs like Hansel and Gretel. So, what were we saying? Ah yes, a windy little road, almost folk for overgrown children, the graceful melancholy of the dandy, the damnably old England flavor, and a vague aroma of opiated caramel. Then, if you want a more precise idea, here, only for you, a grand pair of fabulous hybrids: for the first, take some Dickensian images and Oscar Wilde-like wisdom and mix; for the second, Ray Davies's gray matter and Paul Roland’s romantic madness and, of course, mix again. How? Who is Paul Roland? Come on, don't tell me you don’t know the most incongruous ghost of the Albion moors!!! If still not enough, add the usual arsenal of rococo delights and extravagant harmonies typical of a sixties-oriented record. With a rather varied offer, moreover, since here you really find everything: from the sweetest and most melancholic psychedelia to the little song that, if randomly heard, makes your day, from the most lived-in dandy folk to the endless jangle variations, Above all, however, that scent we spoke of.

Not much to do, anyway, either with the Cleaners or the brotherhood. Because here there are no sketches but paintings, which means no impressionistic bric-a-brac, no cheap tricks, or trapdoors that drop into the unexpected. The magic, for once, is in the almost orchestral airiness and in a sound that, although floating, is full and rich. In short, following the intuitions of Andy's damn ear, everything is polished and smoothed. The result is a delightful lump-free cream served on a well-set Sunday table. Stuff us Cleaners fans aren’t really used to. Like, yes, sure, the sixties pop, but that classical quality might be a bit too much, don’t you think? Well, no. Martin’s freshness is not at all stiff or even remotely submerged. A wise craftsman has only highlighted its exquisite and timeless side. Tra-la-la.