33 rebellions per minute
"Poet is priest, I'm beginning to burn"
© 1997 bokonin@hotmail.com
1991
Julian Cope, PEGGY SUICIDE
After an interesting but nothing-special '80's career--- I mean his music was nothing special; no comment on his personal antics--- Cope suddenly emerged among my favorite musicians of the '90's (probably trailing Tori Amos and the Loud Family's Scott Miller, but I can't pick just one He Might Be Giant or Rheostatic or Unstoppable Sex Machine Part). PEGGY SUICIDE sets the loose formula for all succeeding Cope albums: start with a hummable groove as opposed to a real melody. Continuously evolve that groove over 2-to-9 minutes in an interesting way, often winding up at a sonic destination undetectable at the start, but never failing to make sense, to indeed seem natural. Then, fail to make sense!, by starting with a groove from totally different genre as the next song begins. Repeat for 71 minutes, because CD's have lots of space, and isn't that good news?
PEGGY SUICIDE starts with "Pristine"'s simple voice'n'acoustic guitar'n'music-box, until it builds up--- it's a relationship song to Mother Nature: "Lying to me was your first mistake. Trusting in me was your major mistake. Pristine, Pristine, how much more can you take?". "East Easy Rider" is a breezily thuggish ironic cheer for cars. "Hanging Out & Hung Up On The Line" is as definitive (to me) of what "rock'n'roll" is as any song you could name. "Safesurfer" starts with his version of beat poetry over guitar atmospherics and ends up repeating a sung mantra as piano music acquires drum accompaniment, switches to organ (then rejoins it in duo), brings in electronic bloops, and returns the guitar to overshadow them with a wall-of-noise solo that the piano and electronics rise up to fight with, then the solo gets metal and the keyboards send some really processed multi-note crashes and some more stuff happens. "Soldier Blue" sounds like Steely Dan, 300 production layers before the finished product (a good-quality demo), with a sampled speech from a policeman. "You" is definitive punk, if you don't mind taking your punk with jazz saxophone and prominent woodblock, and why should you mind? "Head" is cheerful psychedeli-pop (if you can be cheerful singing "I can feel my head exploding now"). "Not Waving But Drowning" is tropicalismo that activates my genetic predisposition in favor of marimbas. "Beautiful Love" is a sweet version of the "Manchester Sound" (Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Jesus Jones) and has a French Horn solo. "Western Front 1992 CE" is a rain-and-sewer noise collage with guest 3-part vocals that I'd attribute to a children's chorus only they're really good, so: high-pitched grown-ups. "Hung Up And Hanging Out To Dry" repeats the phrase as quickly as possible (monotone A then monotone D and back) over a building series of loops and could be taken for a Tall Dwarfs song. "Las Vegas Basement" ends things with quiet solemnity, voice and organ. I'm not sure any single song blows me away, but everything is good and the cumulative effect is remarkable.
Vocals are a specialty of his; depending on how I momentarily feel about Bono's theatrics, I don't think there's a better male singer than Cope in the biz. His attractive, resonant, articulate baritone voice sounds equally at home being sad or hectoring, comforting or ominous, scornful or messianic or good-time rocking-out. The lyrics are rather weaker, but read their eloquent expansions in the liner notes: sure his Druid/ Earth-mother/ Stone-circles beliefs are bollocks, but they lead him to be a passionate opponent of automobiles, urban sprawl, meat-eating, and other far deadlier "normal" practices, plus he is reputedly a very nice man, good husband, and excellent father. And a gifted rock star. So all hail the flake!
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