So the bearded boy turns to the lank-haired girl and says, “Woe is me, for I cannot seem to get laid with this dippy-acoustic complaint-folk that I play.” And the lank-haired girl says, “Well, why not take some drugs, go clubbing and listen to a bit of [a]Primal Scream[/a]?” And lo, his polite songs are transformed into raggedly hymnal psychedelia-strums the likes of which the [a]Regular Fries[/a]can only dream of, and [a]Beth Orton[/a]-shaped women throw themselves at his feet.
In their own quietly subversive way, Jo Bartlett and Danny Hagan have produced another defining record for a year in which messing with the formula has been [I]de rigueur[/I]. It doesn’t herald itself with quite the explosive insolence of ‘Guerrilla’ or ‘The Beta Band’, but there’s the same evident desire to refract a frazzled urban experience through waves of pastoral guitar’n’whatever else is at hand. Their ambition is most obvious on ‘Love Expression’ which shifts from an ululating trip-gospel groove into a warm mantra of horns and strings and bric-a-brac beats. Or there’s ‘Hippy Thinking’ where dirty distorted guitar and indolent tambourine rhythms are laid as foundation for Jo‘s Dot Allison-esque tones.
After 35 all-too short minutes, you pull yourself away from the speakers with a strange and glowing sense of wonder. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship