Album of the Month: HUMANWORLD by Peter Perrett

A short review of Humanworld would simply state the obvious: as great as this album is, it is not quite How The West Was Won. A longer one should start with me being surprised at how prolific Peter Perrett has become at this point in his career. Two albums in as many years. I guess there is something to the man's recent comment that he feels like a cockroach who has survived a nuclear war. Because he has survived a lot of things, and somehow he keeps coming back with new songs of the same old vulnerable melodic wit.

First of all, the songs are great. The three singles that are all placed at the very beginning of the album are worthy of anything Peter has ever written, and no future retrospective should be without them. "I Want Your Dreams" is Peter Perrett's idiosyncratic rock'n'roll with female backup vocals and menacing undertones (the lyrics made me think of "Master Misery", that great short story by Truman Capote). "Once Is Enough" is more of the some. "Heavenly Day" may be strongly indebted to Lou Reed, but this is a classic Peter Perrett tune, simple and hard-hitting (only Jason Pierce can rival him in that respect). 

The rest of the album cannot match that opening salvo, but equally Peter Perrett does not do poor songwriting. It is just that Humanworld settles for a good song ("Love's Inferno") where How The West Was Won had a near-classic ("C Voyeurger"). Still, there is a lot to be said for the great adrenaline rush of "War Plan Red" (in spite of the cheesy intro) and, of course, the closing "Carousel" which is so beautiful it hurts. I'm also quite fond of "Master Of Destruction" written by Peter's song Jamie. It may be no "Another Girl, Another Planet", and its charm could seem rudimentary, but the skill is there. 

Again, none of the songs are longer than four minutes (most are under three) so they don't overstay their welcome. What is more important, however, is that nothing on this album will at any point make you forget that this man wrote The Only Ones and Woke Up Sticky. This is the very same songwriter, with the same voice and the same lyrical preoccupations. After so many years (and nuclear wars), this is some feat.

My Cultural Lowlights: MARVEL

I have recently read a rather disturbing article about how young people do not care about sex anymore. Too busy arranging the background for the latest image, too obsessed with a filter that would give them a better light, too preoccupied with placing hashtags in the right order, young people no longer have time for making love. I find this genuinely tragic, and, aside from the usual suspects, I blame Marvel for that. 

Marvel and its sexless world of sexless superheroes. Kids just do not see it onscreen anymore, actors and actresses engaging in the good old-fashioned act of love-making. Instead, they see people with no particular genital organs save the world. In fact, you could argue that sex is disappearing from cinema altogether, and The Guardian asked that very question in a recent and surprisingly incisive article titled The end of erotica? How Hollywood fell out of love with sex. Mind you, I am not even talking about a passionate sex scene with two lovers making it out, screaming, on a car roof. 

Also, I blame Marvel for Chernobyl, and not because Chernobyl was bad or anything like that. The TV show was great, powerful and educational even for someone who grew up hearing quite a number of stories about Chernobyl and enduring a million remarks from my maths teacher about how my generation is nothing more than 'sick children of Chernobyl'. In fact, I was downright impressed by the bleak faces on the sorry-looking buses. The particulars of Soviet life are depicted with wonderful restraint and precision. Having said all that, Chernobyl did stumble on its poorly constructed axis of heroes and villains. 

This, too, is Marvel, and its world of superheroes and supervillains. The brain of modern audiences is simply not wired to understand the subtlety as well as the gruesomeness of the fact that sometimes you cannot do it by merely juxtaposing the good and the bad. Because sometimes the good are not that good and the bad are not that bad. Sometimes it is the whole fucking system which is responsible, and Dyatlov, too, might have had more dimensions to him (as one who chooses to dig a little deeper into the history of Chernobyl will see). The TV show targeted the wide audience. It showed us dozens of naked miners. It pitted good against evil. It chose the fairy-tale angle. It went the easy way. And I blame Marvel for that.

Of course, you could knock me down by saying this is all just good clean fun and Gaspar Noé has not stopped making films and how about this latest by Abdellatif Kechiche? Marvel is not supposed to be anything more than deriving some feel-good, CGI-infused fun from the seventeenth sequel to Avengers. Yeah, sure, but then again: history teaches us that engagement with sexless fun leads one to the discovery of a deep social message in a latest hit by Taylor Swift. 

My Cultural Highlights: THE INDELICATES

It astounds me how I can still discover a band (even if 'a band', as Mark E. Smith pointed out, 'is what plays in Blackpool') like The Indelicates, more than ten years after their debut. A band that up to some point in time had managed to pass me by entirely. Which would hardly be that big a deal were it not for the fact that during these ten years I was searching for the very band. 

I do have my excuses though. For instance, to give you some idea of just how obscure The Indelicates are, be aware that you will not find one review (not a blurb, not a comment) of an album like Elevator Music anywhere on the Internet. Not even Popmatters bothered with it. The very Popmatters that once proclaimed The Indelicates one of two or three bands that matter. And they were right, too.

The band is basically Simon Indelicate and Julia Indelicate (yes, these are their real names) and various musicians who happen to be around. Julia was once in a hipster girl group called The Pipettes that time has erased (I still have fond memories of some of their early singles though). As for Simon, let us cut the crap. Simon Indelicate is one of the greatest songwriters this century has given us. Over these 10-odd years he has created a body of work anyone this side of Luke Haines would envy (not an idle reference point, by the way, as Luke's pop sensibilities and cynical wit are very much an influence): a fully-fledged debut, a classic second, a brilliantly bizarre concept album, a patchy yet masterful fourth, two more eccentric concept albums featuring a greater number of ideas than the complete discography of your favourite artist. Add to this a couple of operas and some fucked-up punk offshoot I have not yet had the pleasure to hear.    

In a word, remarkable. And rather tragic, too, as the world (and me, up to some point two months ago) continues to not give a damn. In case you do, though, go straight to this place and start paying for art: https://corpor.at/artists/The_Indelicates/


For me, it all began with American Demo (2008), a debut that sounds like Black Box Recorder mixed with Manic Street Preachers. You simply cannot miss the songwriting talent that is all over songs like "Unity Mitford", "We Hate The Kids", "The Last Significant Statement To Be Made In Rock 'n' Roll". In fact, if you do not fall in love with these songs by just reading the titles, wait until you hear the first line of "New Art For The People".  

Songs For Swinging Lovers (2010; check out the album cover) is more masterful still. Whereas American Demo has a misstep or two ("Stars", for instance), the second album is impeccable. Murder ballads, overblown cabaret, ruthless digs at younger generation, an unlikely country single titled "Sympathy For The Devil". Diversity is starting to show. And "Flesh" is a classic. I mean, in this day and age careers are ruined for lyrics like that.

And then, as if they could possibly go even more left-field, The Indelicates released a concept album about a religious cult leader called David Koresh Superstar (2011) that blew both Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice out of the water. This is songwriting masterclass, and could well be their masterpiece. 

Diseases Of England (2013) is the difficult second disguised as fourth. It is a little all over the place, but do not let it distract you from the fact that most would kill to write a song like "Everything Is Just Disgusting". Or Le Godemiché Royal". Or "Class". In the end, I only object to the two Julia-sung ballads in the middle of the album. The rest is gold, and "Not Alone" happens to have some of the most unsettling lyrics I have ever heard. 

Elevator Music (2015) is another concept album, and yet again the concept is not what you would expect. The story is about the Internet achieving consciousness and going into space, but this time I would advise to focus on the music. This album takes a few listens to sink in, but once it does - you will understand the anthemic power behind "Beyond The Radio Horizon" and the sheer beauty of "The Last Man On The Moon". It is an album that just gets better with time.

Finally, Juniverbrecher (2017) is a concept album about Brexit where the concept revolves around banishing the Jimmy Savile demon. The record is quite an exhilarating ride that should be experienced in one sitting (this is their most homogenous sounding LP, mostly cabaret and music hall) to enjoy the very British mood as well as the excellent melodies that simply have to be heard by many more people than they probably will.

"We all love The Smiths and we dig The Clash,

But the smell of leather is intoxicating..."

Скетчи про Минск. Исчезновения.

Ох, какую скуку они нагоняют, все эти люди, что смотрят на город хищным взглядом подростка. Закрылся бар? Ничего, говорят они, откроется новый. Разорилась картинная галерея? Появится другая. Снесли скамейку? Поставят еще. Осмоловка? Черт с ней. В такие моменты я почему-то вспоминаю слова, то ли прочитанные, то ли услышанные много лет назад: нет ничего тоскливее новости о том, что девушка, которую ты знал однажды, вышла замуж. Ты мог любить ее, а мог быть к ней равнодушен. Не в этом дело. Просто ты упустил возможность.

Я вспомнил об этом неделю назад, когда мы пришли в один из любимых ресторанов Минска, Bread & Vine, и в полутемном зале не увидели ни одного человека. Все столики были пусты, на полках, некогда широких, стояли редкие бутылки Шардоне, а где-то в углу прятались официанты, смущенные нашим приходом. Это страшное чувство, потому что распад происходит на глазах. Вино выдыхается, чиабатта черствеет, по стенам сползает плесень. 

Сейчас все это напоминает последние дни семейства Буэндиа из книги Маркеса, а пару лет назад, когда место еще только открылось на улице Карла Маркса, под землей, напротив бара Sweet & Sour, сюда хотелось приходить каждый вечер и открывать розовую бутылку Masserei и пробовать сыр с пепельной плесенью. В этой идее правда что-то было - брать с полки вино, просить нарезать хлеб и часами говорить обо всем на свете. Там не было музыки и, несмотря на безыдейность интерьера, там хотелось быть. И никому не говорить, что это место существует.

Но теперь его нет, и это новый виток вечной трагедии жизни в городе. Об этом ничего не знают люди, что блуждают голодными привидениями из одной кофейни в другую, а потом жалуются на бездушность города. Не ощущая, что в городе уже есть часть их. Или это такая удивительная способность: дотронуться и не оставить после себя отпечатков пальцев?.. 

Есть сомнительная картинная галерея, которой больше нет, но где я смотрел документальный фильм про Дягилева. Есть скамейка, которую вырвали с корнем, но куда однажды я поставил картину-сцену из фильма "Зеркало", которую купил за несколько часов до этого. Есть, в конце концов, эта парикмахерская, на которой сегодня висит желтая табличка "аренда", и где меня стригли так хорошо. Или так плохо. Или не стригли вовсе.

travelling notes (xcii)

You have to admire the guts of a German lady who walks into a Lithuanian hipster cafe selling second-hand books and asks for some great Russian novel by Dostoevsky. The girl isn't impressed but she goes looking.