6th December 2023
Christopher Nosnibor
I hadn’t been looking for something that straddled Bauhaus’ more experimental cuts and David Devant and his Spirit Wife… But that’s how it goes. You don’t know what you want – or need – until you find it, and stuff lands on your lap when you least expect it. This is theatrical, crazy, over the top. It’s the sound of a band flipping out, melting down in every direction – more of a document of an electrical shock to the brain than the frazzled fizz of the frothing seafront.
‘The Wheel, the Spade, the Stars in Motion’ is no instant grab post-industrial froth: instead, it’s a frenetic electronic mania, all the froth and panic. The panic… the panic is real. It’s the soundtrack to waking up disorientated and wondering where the hell you are and what on earth is going on, and the video only adds to the bewilderment, the wackiness as surreal as the most inexplicable dream.
Strolling bass and wonky guitars are only half of a story which throws into the melting pot the sharp, sinewy guitar pop of Franz Ferdinand and the over the top agitated dramatics of The Associates.
The lyrics are utterly barking, but shouldn’t be dismissed as mere quirky nonsense: there’s a genuine poeticism and flair for language on display here.
The maid was in the garden
Disfigured by a bird
That reactionary raptor
Left her undeterred
The specksioneer made it clear
harpoon held aloft
Declaring that his love for her
could melt the permafrost
Playing with the tropes of the Elizabethan sonnet, but at the same time spinning circles of Surrealist imagery, Erotic Secrets of Pompeii are a unique proposition, and for all the warped oddness, which shouldn’t work but does, ‘The Wheel, the Spade, the Stars in Motion’ is a cracking single if you can step back from the craziness for long enough to reflect and absorb.
AA
Aural Aggravation 