Scritti Politti
White Bread and Black
Beer
Rough Trade/Shock
I never set much store
by record labels, although I suppose there might be something in the notion that a certain
culture at certain record labels give
a certain something to certain
artists. And this could perhaps explain why the new Scritti Politti album – the
group’s umpteenth but their first back on their basically-original label Rough
Trade – is their best since their first album, Songs to Remember.
The above paragraph
was so freakin’ complicated, I didn’t want to have to add in the additional
information that the group is not really a group, just a guy, or perhaps the guy, Green Gartside, this
just-pretty-much-a genius, at home doing some recording on equipment that, if
it doesn’t exactly constitute a home studio, is at least enough recording
equipment to fit into his home. The album is sparse, fragile, slipperier’n an
oily rag, and glows like a gold brick. I
think it’s a masterpiece.
Scritti last bothered
the charts in 1984 with ‘Wood Beez’, a song that was surely a hit because it
was an early example of a record no-one, including its perpetrators probably,
could ever sing along to (so you had to buy it). T(he)y had a pretty prominent
near-hit in the ‘91 with a minor Beatles song, ‘She’s a Woman’, in which Shabba
Ranks often popped in and said ‘Shabba!’ (or did I dream that?). And then there
was a decent album called Anomie and
Bonhomie a few years ago which I haven’t listened to since it came out.
Now, Green appears to
have a beard and has become funnier than ever. Even as slight a slice of funk
as ‘Throw’ is a hoot (‘you could throw a party and maybe I’ll be there’, he
sings, which amuses me, anyway). Green, like Jon Michell, likes Marc Bolan, and
like Jon Michell, it shows (just listen to ‘After Six’, forget the strange
godbotherer references, and imagine it speeded up – it’s Jesus in a Jeepster).
He also – you’ll remember he once covered the Beatles – likes, or likes to
sound like, Paul McCartney; that final track, ‘Robin Hood’, one of the best,
would have fit perfectly on any McCartney album except, um, Run Devil Run. There’s a crazy, slightly
creepy song called ‘Mrs Hughes’ which is kind of Simon and Garfunkel and scary
but totally brilliant.
Can’t recommend this
record highly enough.
By the way (this is me in 2021 now), I still stand by this review, uninterestingly written as it may be. I see that in the original I slightly erred in the record's title - it's White Bread Black Beer, that's not particularly important. I would like to hear this album again because who knows what's happened to my CD of it. I think it might have come out on vinyl but I'm trying to keep a lid on my vinyl purchases if at all possible. Instead I'm spending all my dosh on books and films, what a prat. And ornaments and car repair. And food. And, you know, bills.
