7 / 10
"DEAR ROBYN, YOU ARE NICE... I still can't get over how someone so exceptionally laser-visioned and razor-tongued, so boldly unself-censored and leggy as you can also be so alarmingly warm, fine-hearted and cuddly. You are one great giant of a dude..."
So writes Jonathan Demme, the director of Storefront Hitchcock, a film of former Soft Boy and prolific solo artist Robyn Hitchcock playing in a deserted shop in New York. Often condemned as whimsical - and yes, there is a song on this 'live soundtrack' LP called 'No, I Don't Remember Guildford' - Hitchcock's unique linguistic gifts are always bound with a strong emotional thread. His monologues are gently skewed perspectives from an upside-down telescope - "If it weren't for our ribcages there'd be spleens a-go-go" - while the songs are DNA-complex strings of image and melody. The tendon-tight, coffee-addled 'Freeze' is a neuroses espresso, while new song '1974' is as twitchily poignant as anything he's ever written - "Syd Barrett's last session, he can't sing any more", sighs Robyn regretfully. "He's gonna have to be Roger for the rest of his life".
When your head is a planet, stardom casts a weak light. Robyn spins on his own axis. Get in orbit.
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