Cleverly entitled Midlands Life Crisis, this Repo Man side project has all the chaos we’ve come to love from the boys — and a hell of a lot more.
A triangulation of talent, the ’70s library album cover art repetitively alludes to a collaboration between three members of Bristol’s No-Wave wrecking ball, Repo Man (Liam McConaghy – guitar / Anthony Brown – bass / Bojak – sax, violin, vocals) collectively labelled Repo; and two members of Exeter’s free jazz trio Capri-Batterie (Matt (K) Lord on tenor sax and bass and Kordian Tetkov on all things percussive and squeaky), an extra contingent that swerves tastily in there, temples the tension with extra perspective.
Perspectives that slam colossal and caked from the outset. A fret-burn spiral and shuffling thump, shimmer-sucked and primal, the orator interjecting to a noir-crusted introspection as the sax leans over a Tortoise-like amble that paragraphs and accents to a lovely tumbling hue.
Loving the vocal surf of “First Six Steps” as it theatrically incises to a skiffling gloved glamour, all post-rock tender and stepped percussive, offsetting those purpling proses. Vivid observations that tear into your ear like a salty terrier, lavishly loitering in your head with an oiled malevolence (lyrical gold, thankfully printed in the accompanying inlay for your delectation) as sonics swap out to the brief mutant calypso-candy moment of “Aimless, Nameless” before “Captain Ditched The Hog” pours forth its riotous colour, and slays with sweet zigzags and thickety fingers. The lovely down-stroked fed back slacker of “No Spine” totally glows, shimmering in a sax’s vaporous shadow — a skilful sound bath medicated in a hushed vocal that swings reflective. A reined-in moment that gives the chaos-curdled frenzy of “Depot No 90” extra bite, ripely roasted with randomised itch and colliding trajectories.The comical bloat of “Civil Swan” is genius. An atonally agitated circus march, addictively junk-yard stoked and slanted, diving headlong into the choppy charisma of “Hal Hartley Dinner Party”. A prickly-cartwheel of divergence, rhythmically roasting on a meaty guitar strum — a treble heavy Sister-period Sonic Youth va-va-voom, veined in fluid saxologies. Fraying contours caught on the word flow, elegantly stolen in a slow kiltering of hedgehog spikes and mulled molasses.
A great workout for your lugholes, all ending on the eleven-minute outro of “Throbbing Keegan”, an instrumental which finds a rich conversational triad between saxophone, guitar(s) and loose-hipped drummage. Playfully triggered textures gliding attentively, swelling into a post-rock breakdown before chomping back for an explosive / reactively rubbed showdown wow.Midlands Life Crisis synergy sizzles with surprise from start to finish.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
