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Album Review
by SashaS
1-11-2002
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| Badly Drawn Boy's 'Have U Fed The Fish?' |
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Badly Drawn Boy: 'Have You Fed The Fish?'
(Twisted Nerve)
Badly Drawn Boy retains fantastic level
In the world populated with mediocre, plagiaristic, covers-galore of soap-stars-turned-singers, a scene of all-obeying puppets-of-commerce is the one upon which Badly Drawn Boy releases his gorgeous music. BDB, or Damon Gough, a man-in-a-tea-cosy is, possibly, the last genuine Brit-eccentric. He singularly opposes the bottomless pit that knows no quality, innovation, talent or individualism – we live in the world of clones and the more you ‘make’ them the more degraded copies become. Thus, the Mercury winner with his debut disc should have no problem next year, again. ‘Have You Fed The Fish?’ is a record by a man who refuses to blend into the pale-hood of the background noise that passes for the current chart favourites.
‘… The Fish’ is brimming with a colourful, peculiar, catchy music intersecting our realm occasionally but certainly dwelling on another existential floor. Musically it embraces indie-rock, post-modernism, vaudeville-like atmo to country-tinged ditty or a touch of keyboards Supertramp patented: there are no limits, each song is another mind-child and they all are different. Lyrically, this is a strange world that touches surrealism on ‘You Were Right’; Gough also has an incredible knack to make everyday chores sound sinister and the title song is a good point in case: what with? Why are they important? Why is it imperative to be reminded? But, then again, he could just be a neo nu-man who cares for his goldfish…
‘Centre Peace’ (spelling correct) is a mellow instrumental that is even EQ’d quietly to make it appear more ethereal and seemingly unattainable; his arrangements have grown more ambitious since ‘The Hour Of The Bewilderbeast’ and track like ‘How?’ is nearly a musical drama. At other moments he might appear to be taking after Dexy’s Midnight Runners but then the track, ‘The Further I Smile’, veers into a disco-Latino, ‘Imaginary Lies’ sounds wistful in all its 45 seconds!
BDB can funk-it-up on ‘Using Our Feat’ with all the confidence of Talking Heads in their heyday, the fairground jolliness jumps out the speakers on ‘Ticket To What You Want’, re-examing his fame and (mis)fortune; ‘Bedside Story’ brings down the curtain in all the lusciousness of orchestral pop. Intensely valiant although not everything as impressive and there are few, albeit very rare, tedious moments.
Still, if the lost-resident of eccentricity, Syd Barrett where young, perhaps he’d be this good and amusing?
Damon Boy is the troubadour for the masses!
8.6/10
SashaS
1-11-2002
Badly Drawn Boy’s album ‘Have You Fed The Fish?’ is released 04 November on Twisted Nerve/XL Recordings
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