From the microbrewery of heady lo-fi ales that brought you NAPOLEON IIIrd, SHIMURA CURVES and APPLICANTS, here is a tantrum in a tuneful teacup from PAGAN WANDRER LU (known to some by his Bolton, Lancashire alias "Andrew Reagan").
The six tracks on this EP were assisted by the aforementioned NAPOLEON IIIrd, whose mournful distant trumpet can be heard at crucial moments in the sprawling splendour of opening track "The Memorial Hall".
PAGAN WANDERER LU could (and has) been described as "Nintendo-folk", "Casio-coustic" "found at car boot sales" and "gleaned from cash converters". Chunky plastic lumps of bright aural candy are turned into something playfully cerebral with some sharp tunemongery, some jagged veins of deft guitar playing and plenty of cheekily treasonable lyrics.
The six pieces on this well-turned-out EP are themselves reworked from earlier DIY issues. The immediacy and the simplicity are crucial, but the care taken with these recordings ensures that what you hear is the bright spirit of the music and not the self-denying limitations of the equipment.
There are three big songs, a sarcastic electro-pop song with its acoustic alter ego ("Repetition 2" and "Repetition 1") and one smaller, sadder song ("----"). The sequence is well chosen and the range of emotion and sound is impressive. "The Memorial Hall" has epic pretensions, and glowers across the four intermediate tracks, sticking out its dancing chin in a brazen challenge to the equally grand closing track "Knight - > King 4". Having an architectural grandiosity that recognises the virtues of iLiKETRAiNS "The Memorial Hall" also has the temerity to do some enthusiastic dancing in its second elctroplastic half. "Repetition 2" is lightly dancy, with a mind that still dwells on Afghanistan and over-stretched credit arrangements.
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"Our Hospital Sucks" evokes the barefaced diatribes of Mark E. Smith, and the brief "----" has a country-folk wistfulness, singing "Not every suicide makes the news, or wants to, these days" as it goes from minor tragedy to minor tragedy in a shaky environment of echoey disturbances. "Repetition 1" turns the song from "Repetition 2" into something entirely different and altogether sweeter.
The CD had a run of 500 and probably has few left following November's sequence of gigs in London and the Midlands. It is good to see the good people of Worcester getting the chance to sample quality from the creative fringes.
http://www.brainloverecords.com
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