RECORDS

Rip It Up, Issue 55, 1 February 1982, Page 14

RECORDS

Pete Shelley

Homosapien

Genetic Records

The Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley was crucial in shaping the style of love songs in the late 70s. His vulnerability, coupled with a romantic bewilderment, were his major characteristics through the Buzzcocks' introspective four albums. The band wained, as love does, but Shelley still wants to shine, still wants to be heard.

And Homosapien proves that he's still worth listening to. It continues his puzzlement-at-love approach - 'I have a feeling it must be love' ('I Don't Know What It is'), so he remains uncertain, tentative, sincerely pleading for an answer, a diagnosis doctor, doctor, gimme the news. So his outlook hasn't changed but, he's , altered his means of communication. Gone are the barrage guitars of Shelley and Diggle, to be replaced by a predominantly-synth backing that alters the sound, rather than the style of the material. The title track, Qu'est-Ce Que', and 'I Don't Know What Is Is' offer a robust if quizzical front, leaving delicacy and pensiveness to the likes of 'Keats' Song' and 'Guess I Must Have Been In Love With Myself'. Deserving special mention is 'Yesterday's Not Here', an expiation of past experiences, a stream-of-consciousness toned down into an excellent song format. Mediocrity exists ('I Generate A Feeling', 'Pusher Man' and 'Just One of Those Affairs'), and Shelley doesn't really break into any new ideas lyrically, but Homosapien reaffirms his ability at writing salient love songs and good tunes. Hard to resist. George Kay Cedric My ton & the Congos Face The Music Go Feet The Congos were adopted by the Beat last year, which led to the long-delayed world release of the classic Heart of the Congos LP. Very choice it was, too. Sweet, primitive fishermen's harmonies. The sound of the country dreads, the men from the hills. The Congos were originally a duo, Cedric Myton and Ashanti Roy Johnson. They split up more than a year ago, with Myton retaining the rights to the Congos' name. Johnson was last

heard of working with Prince Far I.

Now Myton has re-emerged with a follow-up that eclipses Heart of the Congos. Myton forsakes the earthiness of Heart for a more worldly sophistication. The first album was mixed by Scratch Perry, in his four-track Black Art studios. It sho..ed in the rough, muddy sound. This one has been done in the UK, bringing Myton's vocals right up front.

Myton has also reached his maturity as a singer and songwriter with Face The Music. He is more commanding, less tentative, sets out to impress from track one. 'Can't Take It Away' just hammers it home, with a backbeat that's so strong, it provokes an involuntary kink in the knees and hips, willing you to work into the riddim. Myton has had some rough corners knocked off, but he hasn't lost his roots. Face The Music is the emergence of a major artist. Duncan Campbell The Associates Fourth Drawer Down Situation 2 One, two, three, four ... the second Associates' album, another wilful step away from the musical and social restrictions of company-controlled, mainstream rock 'n' roll, and a further step into the privacy of the MackenzieRankine design. One. Billy Mackenzie and Alan Rankine escaped from Dundee and released one of last year's most sophisticated exercises, The Affectionate Punch, on Chris Parry's Fiction label.

Two and cue to Situation Two. And their own label, through which they released a string of superb singles in Britain last year 'Tell Me Easter's On Friday', 'Q Quarters', 'A Girl Named Property', 'Kitchen Person', Message Oblique Speech' and 'White Car In Germany'.

Three. Fourth Drawer Down, which contains all of the above songs mostly in their original state, and so has rendered the album a non-event in Britain. All their cards have been played, but switch to NZ and we must reassess, since only two of the singles have been released here 'Property', and recently 'Speech'. 'Tell Me Easter's On Friday', 'White Car', 'Property' and to a lesser extent 'Q Quarters', are widescreen images of geographical and emotional landscapes, cold, stark, moving and unforgettable portrayals of mood brilliantly conveyed through Mackenzie's vocal abilities. By comparison, Kitchen Person' is a vortex, swirling and manic, it envelopes, hypnotises and finally draws you into its insanity. Sadly, the album's impact is partially thwarted by two instrumentals, The Associate' and 'An Even Whiter Car', fine attempts at evoking Le Carre's spy world, but compared to the rest, they're only fillers.

Four. From athletics to acquatics, the Associates have plunged and surfaced with an album of chilling depths. It lacks the accessible dynamics and variety of Punch, but its best moments offer new scope. Sometimes an event. George Kay Garland Jeffreys Rock & Roll Adult Epic No it's not a reply to Cliff Richard's Rock & Roll Juvenile, but Jeffreys' first live set in his nine-year recording career. A live album is probably propitious at this stage; it can introduce his back catalogue to the new audience picked up via last year's

brilliant Escape Artist. Appropriately, the first number here is 1973's 'Wild In The Streets', an oft-covered chant of rebellion that has almost become the writer's signature tune. The 60s trash-classic '96 Tears' is the only non-original included but every single song is a gem.

The troubles lie in some of the treatments. Jeffreys is a masterful dramatist of the New York cityscape, but here dissipates the rage and tension of 'Cool Down Boy' with a long-winded monologue about his youth. (It may have been powerful in concert, but on record it's merely tedious.) On 'Matador' and 'I May Not Be Your Kind' his quavering vibrato gets increasingly irritating with each hearing. His band is the ever-solid Rumour, but they occasionally show a trace of the stiffness that crept into their last work with Graham Parker. Yet when everything clicks as on '35 Millimetre Dreams' and three or four others the results are red hot. It's just a pity that such a first-rate bunch of songs didn't all get performances to match. Peter Thomson Toots and the Maytals Knock Out! Island Toots is now a tough guy. He's gone from brash to rude to mellow to retirement to comeback. Now, after a killer live album, he's made the studio album everyone hoped he would. Knock Out, despite the garish cover and dumb title, shows Toots in a writing, singing mood again. His sabbatical seems to have worked wonders. He's written every track, and they're all superb.

Toots is an old-fashioned artist, insofar as anyone so influential can be called such. At his ripe age, he's entitled to retain his traditional values. His roots are tub-thumping gospel, lift your head and sing praises. Example: 'I Know We Can Make It'. Anyone who saw The Harder They Come, and the church scene, will understand tiow this fervour works. Joy is physical as well as spiritual. Ask Toots. Pick another track. Another mood. Try 'Missing You', where Toots recreates the feeling of all those great Motown and Stax ballads of the 60s. Soul? This man has it. 'Beautiful Woman’ has enough singalongatoots to make a hit single, 'Careless Ethiopians' is a hard word for the African man gone astray. 'Revival Time' is another gospel stomper, but they're not about to play this one from the pulpit: / say the Orthodox Church don't pay no tax I say the Catholic Church don't pay no tax The Anglican Church don't pay no tax I say the Coptic Church should not pay no tax . . . Unless, of course, you're Coptic Christian, a religion peculiar to Africa and the Middle East. This is Toots' best since the heady days of Funky Kingston. If he's getting on, he doesn't show it. Scores a big 10, without reservations. And I'm not talking about beer or 80, either.

Duncan Campbell