Label: Locus Solus Format: CD
Charles Hayward‘s unique observations on the grimness and greatness of human existence are usually slightly off to one side of the general flow of music and song, and Abracadabra Information is decidedly at a tangent to, but entirely redolent of the pains and pleasures of 21st Century living.
Flickering on, flourescent tube style, with “Toytown” and it’s straight in to an entropic hymn of displeasure with urban life in London, with John Edwards contributing some subtle yet powerful double bass vibrations. There’s yet more urgent cy to the upbeat tempo and bleepy electronics of “My Madness”, where Hayward’s mental state becomes audibly and lyrically paranoid, building into a clattering roll of funky drums and imprecations for moments of sanity in an insane world. His voice sounds especially ragged and honest here – Hayward is no conventional singer, but a man expunging a tide of righteous concern which can growl into despairing anger as the percussion becomes increasingly frenetic, then disruptive, matching his madness in a welter of melocia, baby cries and cathartic yelps. Rememeber – he can do this just as effectively as a solo live performance too.
“Shadowplay” slinks in to relieve the pressure built up in a twinkling of fed-back chimes and bells, cymbals brushed and drones intoned, prefacing the resonant virtual string chords and piano which underpin the album’s title track. Cruising on a powerfully-thrashed out rhythmic hovercraft built from the dub descendents of London and Jamaica, “Abracadabra Information” is one of Hayward’s signature epics, and as he chants the chorus “Information rich/Information poor” and the piano flickers, there is a paradoxical musical surge of conviction and hope among the ruins of the divided and society of decapitated chickens he rails against in the lyrics.
Another instrumental, “Silo 23”, shivers and rumbles with threatening loops and a broken-backed Industrial dub bass Mick Harris would revel in. Hayward uncurls a tense drum solo which segues into edgy passages of clangour and speedy runs, swerving and lurching into murky areas of reverberation and disturbance. “Time Is Spiral” concludes matters with an all-encompassing glance into the heart of it all, repeated motifs layered into a heartfelt invocation, his voice stretching to near-cracking point. As large in sound as the subject demands, this song displays Charles Hayward’s essential humanity with both vigorous force and a passionate urge to grasp the sublime; as he sings the title over and again into echoed infinity, the percussion straining equally under the weight, with the only possible outcome the heath-death of the song and album.
-Linus Tossio-
