Letter From Britain
Pretty Vacant
After months which have witnessed the birth of a new trend every four weeks (faithfully recorded, and over-exposed, by the music press here)...suddenly anything goes.
After months which have witnessed the birth of a new trend every four weeks (faithfully recorded, and over-exposed, by the music press here)...suddenly anything goes. Nervous times. If my post reflects the current musical confusion then let me tell you what arrived on my doormat today: a single called “High Rise” by The Trainspotters which turns out to be pretty ordinary punk/pop about living in a tower block. Yawn— too late boys, far too late. A Nona Hendryx record that sounds like The Coasters’ “Little Egypt”; a pamphlet extolling the experimental virtues of one Geoff Leigh with an EF called “The Chemical Bank”. I quote: “Five jiving songs, from the neo-bubblegum catchiness of ‘shah of iran’ (well it made me laugh)” to the very English but snakily funky ‘starshooters’ ...plus ‘psychotropic ganglions’ described by Geoff as “a computerised tribal dance for the totally hypnotised modem man who has forgotten how to walk.” Mr. Leigh, it transpires, is a one-man electronic band, a sort of looney Mike Oldfield (one’s enough some may think).