The closing title track of ‘Fathering’ is constructed around the sound of two lovers panting to orgasm. Rather perversely, they’re both voiced by [a]Mark Mulcahy[/a]- which rather suggests that since he’s a solo
artist, he’s something of an obsessive. Of course, that’s just the way we like them.
Mulcahy was the frontman of Miracle Legion – a band tipped, at the end of the ’80s, to be the next REM, but were blighted with contractual difficulties after they split with their label. It swiftly becomes evident, though, that in Mulcahy’s grand scheme, Miracle Legion were little more than orchestral ballast.
From the opening ‘Hey Self Defeater’, Mulcahy builds on Jeff Buckley’s legacy to prodigious effect, framing his acrobatic drawl with a few chiming notes and proving, with skewed elegance, that less really can be more. ‘Fathering’ was performed entirely solo; dusty elegies to fallen women, poised somewhere between youthful abandon and cynical voyeurism. ‘Bill Jocko’ is the album’s grimy climax, Mulcahy spitting out a tale of illicit romance – lovers, “drunk on wine coolers that they stole from her mother/ Drunk on the summer, and drunk on each other”.
Basically, his stories about other people tell you much more about Mulcahy himself. Still out there. A bit self-obsessed. But so what? ‘Fathering’ gives even self-love a good name.