June 7, 2001

Haines, Luke : Christie Malry's own double entry

Black Box Recorder man's ace film score

8 / 10 Christie Malry is the perfect figurehead for our post-No Logo, Jon Ronson-saturated times. Underrated absurdist novelist BS Johnson created him in the early-'70s as the ultimate expression of a kind of little man kicking against the pricks in a wholly logical fashion which spins hilariously out of control. A cultural terrorist out to reclaim the debt he sees society owes him, it's no wonder Luke Haines, a man who's made a career out of skewering fools on beautifully spiteful lyrical barbs, was approached to write the
film's soundtrack.

The film is by the by. Nick Moran stars so it's destined to be shit. Get the masterful book, get this album, that's all you need. This is one of the best things Haines has done for ages, certainly since the tragically ignored 'After Murder Park'.

It's like the best bits of all the bands he's formed: there are the glammy new wave angles of The Auteurs on 'Discomania', the icy minimalism of Black Box Recorder on 'England Scotland And Wales', and Baader Meinhof's ragged noise on the astonishing Nick Lowe cover 'I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass'. In between these, he rejigs 'In The Bleak Midwinter' and even dallies with trance, not unsuccessfully, on 'Essexmania'.

Christian Ward