Barry Adamson - Oedipus Schmoedipus
Have you ever been disappointed when some music journalist tells you that such and such’s music is "cinematic", or, even worse, "the soundtrack to an unmade film"? Expecting something really special, the thrilling immediacy of pop music imbued within the drama and power of a good film, only to be confronted by crap strings and a few cheeesy Pulp Fiction / Bladerunner / whatever samples? Then this would be the album for you.
You see, Barry’s been doing this sort of thing for years. All of the above clichťs have been applied to his music, but in his case it’s more than some lazy journo trying to hype up the latest thing. Surely "The Big Bamboozle" is the best bond theme never written. Twenty years of style, charisma, action and sex in one glorious three minute dose.
Sex permeates the album - whether blatantly on the opening ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Pelvis’, which features Jarvis Cocker being all pervy and, well, Jarvis like - or more subtly as on the eavesdropped phone conversation of ‘It’s Business as Usual’ And always in the music, a funky, smoky, jazz-tinged concoction, that could almost be called trip-hop if it wasn’t so good, even when he’s showing-off (listen to the way the music follows the narrative on ‘Vermillion Kisses’). Adamson’s music is so much more fully-realised, more ambitious, just more than the majority of that genres rat-addled nonsense that comparing them seems harsh - so I won’t. I’ll just say that this album is brilliant and that all of you should go out and buy it. As if, eh? (8).
R S Pulaski
