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Rating: “Still, grey morning / Half-light November / No birdsong / Trees are dripping.”
Summer should have already started, but with Midnight Cleaners by the Cleaners from Venus, we are already at the end credits.
One of the many fascinating albums of British lo-fi pop from the '80s. Released in 1982, it is the third album of Martin Newell's project, recorded on a 4-track in a bedroom, it's the third album of Martin Newell's project and represents a creative turning point. After the departure of drummer Lol Elliott, Newell reinvents himself, mixing drum machines, jangle guitars, and homey atmospheres.
Within the discography context, this record is considered a high point of the early Cleaners period, along with On Any Normal Monday and In the Golden Autumn. It is one of the works that herald the bedroom-pop trend and influence '90s American lo-fi artists.
In the silence and among the shadows, hidden from the big spotlights, Newell builds an art story based on the nighttime myth of the midnight cleaner. They clean offices, stations, corridors of evaporated dreams ( Corridor of Dreams ). They are invisible and no one notices them - except Martin - who watched them like minor stars: with discreet wonder.
Richard is one of them, a forced flâneur.
He doesn’t walk for pleasure, but for destiny. Every morning, at the end of his shift, he walks back home among half-torn billboards, puddles with sign reflections, and remains of wet newspapers. He has a collection of bootleg tapes, a notebook where he writes verses, and an unusual passion for the magical evocative sound of the off-key bells ringing in Wivenhoe, ( Wivenhoe Bells) Newell’s hometown, known for being forever out of time. As the day progresses, Richard becomes a collector not only of waste but of precious fragments. He writes them in his notebook between bus rides and cold coffee. Fragments of overheard conversations, of interrupted dreams, of broken calls, of advertisements promising smiles that will never come ( Factory Boy).
Every track on the Midnight Cleaners album is like this: a bare and dusty room, illuminated by a poetic window. And in the center of that room is Richard, a decadent hero, brilliant in his invisibility.
The Story will end in a shared room, where Richard pins a collage made of clipped frames and Martin Newell’s verses to the wall. He turns on a radio, the frequency is poorly tuned, but the Synth Jangle Pop of Corridor of Dreams is recognizable; a sax insinuates itself among the shadows of his drowsy afternoon.
Because, ultimately, the world needs its midnight cleaners. Not to clean, but to remind us that even the invisible has a voice. You just have to know how to listen to it.
In the heart of rural England, among the briny mists of Wivenhoe and the sound of the Sunday off-key bells, this small lo-fi miracle was born: Midnight Cleaners, the third album by The Cleaners from Venus, released in December 1982. Newell’s voice, sincere and ironic, skims the notes accompanied by jangle guitars, minimal synths, melancholic sax, and drum machines.
The band came to life in 1980, driven by Newell and Lol Elliott, free spirits who rejected the norms of the music industry and embraced a craft ethic: duplicable cassettes, hand-drawn covers, and lyrics that embrace the right to free sharing. After Elliott’s departure, Newell continues the path alone, surrounded by occasional friends, improvised instruments, and that twilight light that illuminates each of his productions.
Their approach silently anticipates the lo-fi revolution and will leave invisible footprints in the independent music of the years to come.
Midnight Cleaners is structured on two conceptual sides: the Pop Side and the Art Side. The first gathers the most singable melodies, like Only a Shadow, a delicate and restless track that opens with a real band, rather than drum machines. The guitars seem to dance on a dusty floor, in a tea room where echoes of Johnny Marr blend with shadows. Corridor of Dreams is a black and white dream, between sax and synth that float like light curtains in a house overlooking the railway. Wivenhoe Bells II is perhaps the most poetic page of the album: a portrait of Newell’s hometown, made of faded terraces, off-key bells, and memories intertwined like ivy on pinkish brick walls. Here Newell becomes the chronicler of the small and precious things, the custodian of last-minute nostalgia.
On the more experimental side, Factory Boy and the title track Midnight Cleaners delve into freer territories, between spoken word, social commentary, and sound improvisations. Here Newell’s poetic universe becomes more satirical and sharp: the disillusioned worker, the advertisement invading dreams, the modernity that confuses and erases.
Despite the technical limitations, the album maintains a surprising consistency and rare narrative richness. Rediscovered and remastered in 2012 by Captured Tracks, it retains its fragile rebellion and the musty smell of those well-lived tapes with hand-drawn covers. In a world that celebrates noise, Midnight Cleaners is a whisper that remains.
Oh, I almost forgot, if anyone happens upon something unusually beautiful, live that moment while listening to "Wivenhoe Bells."
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