The Teardrop Explodes
Kilimanjaro

THE REVIEW

With its sweet psych-pop confections drowned in sophisticated neo-romantic wave, Kilimanjaro (1980) is an album that captivates at the first listen, engaging the emotional sphere and enchanting it to such an extent that any attempt at auditory detox becomes futile.

A surprise that renews my worn-out passion for that singular figure of mystical/ecological guru known as Julian Cope, a musician who has absorbed and understood the essence of all underground rock (perhaps too much, given his excessive drug use), but also an expert in druidic culture and a historian/writer of diverse topics like German cosmic rock (narrated and analyzed in his book Krautrocksampler) and the mythological places of the United Kingdom (the book and site The Modern Antiquarian). An eccentric jester lost in the dream of a distant reality, committed to reinterpret with new romantic/decadent emphasis the visionary nursery rhymes of Syd Barrett and Jim Morrison and to express his pessimism for the ills that afflict the world.

His story begins with the Teardrop Explodes, a Liverpool band illuminated by the seminal insights of masters like Television and Brian Eno and oriented towards the neo-psychedelic wing of the British new wave, populated by groups such as Soft Boys, Xtc, Echo And The Bunnymen. Songs like Treason, Went Crazy, Reward, Sleeping Gas, Bouncing Babies to name a few, are examples of melancholic and disoriented melody, accompanied by unpredictable gashes of garage guitars, punk rhythms, funky horns, keyboards that strongly recall the Doors and the farfisa bands of the sixties. At certain moments you find yourself facing pieces that seem to come directly from the pen of Robert Smith, but with the Cure directed towards old-school lysergic paths. Instability and differences of opinion are the elements that will lead the band to dissolve, leaving the following year the testimony of a second episode Wilder and a third unfinished album Everybody Wants To Shag. From that moment, Cope will have the opportunity to start an astonishing solo career, churning out in the '80s some milestones of English rock such as World Shut Your Mouth and Fried.

In the '90s, the courage to reinvent himself, experiencing a second artistic youth with increasingly eccentric and bizarre releases (Peggy Suicide, Jehovahkill, Autogeddon, 20mothers), characterized by evident contaminations with Barrettian folk, hard rock, krautrock, electronics (Queen Elizabeth), instrumental experimentation (Rite, Odin), and the recent revisitation of the Stooges sound with the Brain Donor project.
An underrated masterpiece highly recommended to all lovers of good old wave. Take that:)