From Scenes of a Sexual Nature (Chemikal Underground; 2010)
Box sets may be the fallback preserve of the over-investor, but every now and then a band put one out you’d gladly sell off both kidneys for. I’m not talking about the likes of the never-before-heard Courtney Love archive of “You Know You’re Right” masters—I’m talking about Arab Strap, Falkirk’s premier confessors of sleaze, and the time capsule they’ve just dropped to fans. After calling it quits in 2006 to the dismay of feral romantics everywhere, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton forged respectable solo careers for themselves—Malcolm’s “We’re All Going To Die” was championed by Radio 1 for Christmas No. 1 2007, and Aidan…well, Aidan’s plain amazing. Their 1000-only Scenes of a Sexual Nature box sees them re-teaming to unearth old treasures, and while sixty sheets may seem a little steep, just look at what it gets you in the mail: repressed debut LP, repressed sequel to debut LP, newly-pressed LP of late nineties Peel Sessions, CD compilation of late nineties EPs, double-sided poster of reviews from newspapers, individually replicated “green frog demo” cassette that first got the label’s attention, handwritten liner notes from the band’s own Sharpie, a fat CD of MP3 backups, photos of the girls Aidan bedded between albums, and both singer’s Facebook passwords.
OK, so those last two items were a hoax, but seriously: that’s a pretty big kill for a day’s wages. The salivator though is new track “Daughters of Darkness”, which the band polished off in their original studio to show how seriously they’re taking this arrivederci. Seriousness was something the Strap always liked to get sticky with: festooned in bedroom paranoia, Moffat lays down his signature mutter over crashing guitar and piano, recounting the kind of Saturday night that keeps married people safely indoors. “Someone cracks a joke I’m not supposed to get so I pretend it’s over my head and try not to look too hurt / But the joke’s on them: they don’t know I’ve been reading their diaries,” he grumbles. Like John Wayne in The Shootist, this is the cowboys’ last night in town, though with no young Ron Howard to watch their backs menace bubbles from the outset. “Ecstasy killed the casuals,” muses Moffat at one point; “They used to wait for us outside and chase us home, but now they chat to us like old chums and try to sell us drugs.” One pick-up later, Aidan and pals hit the club, receptors opened up in their brains. “It’s amazing what a mirrorball and the right frame of mind can do,” he ponders from the safety of the girls’ toilet while bouncing his thoughts off the drum machine.
Unfortunately he’s not the only one bouncing, and Middleton’s trusty three-chord explosion signifies the lights-up, ejection, and fight. Some of those casuals weren’t quite so casual after all, and are now back from a night of bombing jellies to get a bit merry with weapons. As the band’s mate gets filled in and sliced on the pavement, you can’t help but recall their Peel Session mainstay “The First Big Weekend”—“Daughters” is essentially that track recycled; tweaked to take on the butterfly knife generation and cresting not with The Simpsons but casualty, where agency nurses piece the stabee back together. Moffat gets saved from a crisis of conscience by the twinkle in a wise girl’s eye, and as he vows to stick around for the end of the night you’re grateful this isn’t the end. Except, of course, that it is. Bon voyage, motherfuckers. You were good.
:: Buy Scenes of a Sexual Nature
George Bass @'cokemachineglow'
:o
ReplyDelete