LaRM day 4 (Adamski-Adem)

Solitary brothers! Yep, it's the 7" of Adamski's "club classic" 'Killer' (1990). God only knows where I picked this up from, but there it is in the list, clear as day so there's no avoiding it. I remember my brother was adamant (ha!) that Adamski's 'Killer' was an object lesson in how to construct a song, adding in new layers every fourth bar, etc. Be that as it may it is one seriously dated piece of vinyl and the B-side, 'Bassline Saved My Life' is absolutely abysmal. And besides it's got Seal on it. Seal!! There was a very awkward moment when Zoe and I had lunch with my uncle and his then wife. The topic under discussion was most hated singles and when Zo chose 'Kiss from a Rose' as the worst single of all time, my uncle's wife went very quiet. Anyway, 'Killer' is OK but another point that goes against it is that it ended up on Adamski's first album which was unforgivably called Dr Adamski's Musical Pharmacy - surely that constitues a crime worthy of capital punishment, no?

Then we're on to that arch post-modernist Barry Adamson and his debut solo album, Moss Side Story (1988). This is a fantastic record and one that really set out a quite unique idea of what pop/rock records could and should be striving for. As a kind of "pretend" soundtrack to an imaginary noir thriller, it is incredibly atmospheric, with snippets of faked dialogue and rumbling found sounds underpinning the Roy Budd-ish music. It's great stuff, claustrophobic and sweaty, genuinely unnerving and completely convincing. Unfortunately the brilliance of the conceit (together with his work on the real soundtrack to Jarman's Last of England) meant that some actual soundtrack offers came his way and the work he did for the low budget US thriller Delusion (1991) is a much lighter and extremely fragmentary version of what he had done so brilliantly as pastiche on Moss Side Story.

1992's Soul Murder goes back to the full length atmospherics but with mixed success, as it still feels a bit disjointed and lacking focus. There are some solid passages here (and the ska pulverising of Monty Norman's Bond theme reveals a lot about what Adamson's intentions are) and it also features what are possibly the most stomach-turning 'song lyrics' ever committed to vinyl, in 'A Gentle Man of Colour', a "news report" being related quite emotionlessly to a background of spooky clankings and shrieks. It still feels as if he's trying to find a way to create a record following the Moss Side Story template but without simply repeating it though. Oedipus Schmoedipus (1996) seems to have cracked it to me. It still has mostly instrumental tunes but they finally work in their own right, without relying on each other for support, and he replaces the real and mocked up voiceovers, news reports and dialogue parts with guest vocalists, meaning that there are some actual songs at last. And what cracking songs they are: Jarvis does his absolute pervyist for 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis' Billy Mackenzie's turn on 'Achieved in the Valley of the Dolls' is both sleazy and heart-breaking at once and Adamson's old chum and ex-bandmate Nick Cave does his nice ballad thing. The found sounds and pitch black atmosphere have also been pretty much jettisoned (with the glaring exception of the absolutely terrifying stalker voicemail message nightmare 'It's Business as Usual') and the whole album is much tighter and melodically oriented than any that preceded it.

Finally for today we've got Love and Other Planets (2006) by Adem. This is one of those records that was being touted as being evidence of a kind of new-folk revival but to be honest the folk tag has become nothing more than evidence of laziness on the part of the critic because virtually none of the albums referred to as new folk or freak folk or anything folk have anything to do with folk music at all. The Adem album is simply a quietly charming, low key little pop record that happens to be played mostly on acoustic instruments. And as such it's certainly really pleasant but I can't help but feel too heavily the complete irrelevance to the universe if this record just didn't exist.

Well, not got much in today, so I'll have to make a concerted effort on Monday. Because otherwise I'm estimating this little project is going to take just over two years. And who has that kind of (work) time spare? Eh? Who has? Laters potaters.