Album of the Month: I SOMETIMES DREAM OF GLUE by Luke Haines

Luke Haines went insane in 2010. (Understand, please, that I use the word 'insane' affectionately.) This was the year when he stopped fooling around with whatever passes for normal and released Outsider Music which was 50 copies of him performing the same set of songs fifty different times. That same year, I wrote a crazy wish in some shoddy blog post I hope has long been washed away by the Internet; basically, I expressed a wish for Luke Haines to release a new album each year. 

Little did I know.

- 2011: concept album on British wrestling.
- 2012: concept album telling an alternative history of Great Britain.
- 2013: concept album about Gene Vincent, Nick Lowe and Jimmy Pursey imagined as a cat, a badger and a fox.
- 2014: concept album on the New York music of the 70s.
- 2015: concept album about secret nuclear bunkers in the city of London.
- 2016: non-concept album, miraculously.
- 2017: nothing, although you did get to hear five songs from the aborted Property musical released as the fourth part of his solo box set.
- 2018: concept album called I Sometimes Dream of Glue.

(Note that I did not include a mini-opera on Screwdriver and Mark E. Smith, an electronic album released as part of a music magazine and 75 copies of another one-off project titled Raving.)

I would say be careful what you wish for - but, truth be told, I loved pretty much all of them. I was a bit critical of New York in the '70s back when it was released (citing some slight lack of substance) and I still do not believe that British Nuclear Bunkers will go down in history as a Haines classic, but I would argue that outside Robert Forster, Luke Haines is the world's greatest living songwriter.

And he is raving mad. 

I Sometimes Dream of Glue (has to be a reference to Robyn Hitchcock's I Often Dream of Trains) tells the story of an imaginary English town inhabited by people as tall as a blade of grass. These small people are horny mutants who spend most of their time having sex and dreaming of Airfix glue. The story also involves the second world war and is quite possibly some clever allegory on modern Britain that I would not advise to take too close to heart. 

The album clocks in under 30 minutes, and is basically folk music with a morbid lyrical edge. This folk music ranges from beautiful to ugly (although it's worth remembering that the whole point of Luke Haines is to make ugly sound beautiful). The second part of "She Was Ripe As A Meadow" could well be lifted directly from Rock and Roll Animals, but the wild shrieking of the seagulls brings the inevitable sense of unease. No, this is not a record to be played for your children. This is fucking dark stuff. 

And the songs, albeit short (the hardest rocking "At It With The Tree Surgeons Wife" is barely three minutes long, and it's the longest piece here), are still timeless. It is just that they are of a lesser scope than the ones that - and Luke Haines would probably hate me for this - were part of 21st Century Man. Apart from the infectious single "Everybody's Coming Together For The Summer", I count three all-time Haines classics: "Angry Man On Small Train", "Oh Michael" and "We Could Do It". If you manage to stay mute to the lyrics, you might consider marrying these songs - they are that beautiful. 

Instrumentally, this is Luke Haines playing everything. Mostly acoustic guitars, but there are flutes, harmoniums, recorders and even a few colourful flashes of the electric guitar (second part of "Everybody's Coming Together" is quite notable). In fact, my absolute favourite moment on the album comes one minute into "I Fell In Love With An 00 Scale Wife" that has a line 'I did it, man...' followed by this heavy wailing electric guitar sound which literally comes out of nowhere.

Ever since my vinyl arrived, I Sometimes Dream of Glue has proved to be a wildly addictive album for me. It's that sizzling combination of beautiful and bizarre that I value above everything in art. And you get it here in its purest form. After all, it is easy to be this mad eccentric once in a while, and it is quite a different matter when you do it every year and you do not even have to try. We are fortunate to have this man.  

Factory Radio

My entire life in music could be encapsulated in a factory radio.

Or, rather, it was a radio hoisted outside a factory of some kind, and I would see it going home or sleepily groping my way to the University studies. It was not the highest point of engineering. It was a megaphone hanging from a pole, a very Soviet-looking artefact. 

But it looked so out of place. Everything else could be explained, from the half-empty parking lot to the newly-built trade centre, but you could never quite crack the mystery of that radio. It looked so out of time.

Down to the fact that whatever music it was playing, I would perceive it as something written and recorded ages ago. The vocals gave the impression of a vinyl needle running havoc and every modern pop tune sounded like it was sung by Anna German or Mark Bernes. The music was uniformly bad, there was no getting around it, and neither German nor Bernes could save it. 

Still, the effect was mesmerising, and I was never able to pass the factory radio without making a mental note: yes, but... what will it play next? It was just so incredibly intriguing; whatever the radio was playing now, whatever it was playing yesterday and whatever it was playing three months ago, I was always looking forward to the next song. What will it be? 

Oddly, I fantasised about "Venus in Furs" by the Velvet Underground. In my mind, it was entirely possible - to hear Lou Reed's voice oozing sneeringly through the factory radio, going on about whiplashes and shiny boots of leather. I was ready to wait, I had all the time in the world. And besides, when it finally happened (not 'if' - 'when'), wouldn't that make it all worth it?.. 

But of course - it never did happen. 

Years later, the place is overflowing with things that can be explained: newly-built parking lots and half-empty trade centres. The old radio is no longer there, replaced with the impeccable sounds of headphones, portable speakers and music from the cars. Everything seems to be in place, and it's become a challenge to try and find that mystery, that sense of anticipation. These days, I can only conjure it up occasionally - when I think of the factory radio.

travelling notes (lvi)

In city streets, I love seeing religious people in their religious clothes. I love the glorious abandon with which they briefly visit random public places. I can never quite grasp this but... it's like they give a new dimension to what they barely inhabit.

travelling notes (lv)

There is nothing more seductive than a creaky wooden floor in a provincial museum where nobody goes but you. It is the perfect counterpoint to a dozen middle-aged ladies half-sleeping on the window sills and waking up occasionally to watch you spend a few seconds in front of a painting they have seen, and forgotten, a million times over.

Two by Five

It took two bottles of Portuguese wine to survive this year's Eurovision, but now that it's over, there are five things that linger:

1. Eurovision is as hilarious as ever, and just as bad, so long live Eurovision.

2. Men dressed as vikings doing schmaltzy pop... priceless.

3. Politics aside, Italian entry had the best tune - by far.

4. Who the fuck voted for Israel?

5. Portuguese cuisine is fantastic.

Sketches of Spain

As an afterthought...

There's a great scene in the first season of Mad Men where Don Draper gets into the apartment of his artist-lover. Frustratingly, the artist-lover is not alone. She is there with her beatnik friends who all get together in order to listen to the latest album by Miles Davis. In 1960, it was Sketches of Spain. Now the scene makes many good points (not forgetting the final grand gesture from Don; dirty money to a dirty artist), but to me it has always been about that new LP and how people got together to listen to it in a dimly lit apartment of New York City. Behind the curtains and over several hours of doing nothing but smoking weed. 

A whole album. Imagine that. 

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

You could never accuse me of being an Arctic Monkeys fan. Their debut was all guts and no substance. Their second album barely existed. Humbug was mediocre. In fact, I strongly believe that Suck It And See was their first great record, and a giant leap forward. AM was of course an artistic triumph that should in no way make you forget such crimes against humanity as teaming up with Miles Kane, butchering "Totally Wired", and - oh well - the Last Shadow Puppets have generally bored me to tears.  

Which is why I find myself in this bizarre position of defending Arctic Monkeys and their latest LP, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. The album, not yet released but already panned by humourless people with short attention spans, is rapidly turning into their take on Everything Now. By which I mean a good album suffering from hilarious overreaction.

Truly, this is an interesting time to be alive. People raised on songs trying to criticise an artist for making an album. Because Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is an album, from "Star Treatment" to "The Ultracheese" and all the way down to the fact that they chose not to release any singles (indeed; "American Sports" is fantastic, but would it work as a 3-minute video on YouTube?). It's a fucking album. It's fine that it takes a few listens to sink in and make sense, and there is certainly nothing wrong with a song revealing itself with each new listen or a song that suddenly has a vocal hook where there used to be none. That's what albums are about, they meander in the best way possible. 

There are two paths for a band whose previous album was considered the greatest achievement since Revolver (not my words). You either go tasteless and release the same thing all over again but with different song titles or you retain your good taste and record a left-field album that will be doomed to violent reactions from people who spend too much time indoors. God knows I'm glad Arctic Monkeys chose the latter option, and released an album this mellow, and this bold.