CDs
Milligan’s fantasia
by Nick Bollinger
MR PHUDD AND HIS NOVELTY ACT, Phil Judd (www.philjudd.com).
In his first collection of new songs in 16 years, the Split Enz founder draws a line all the way back to Mental Notes. The cover images introduce Mr Phudd, a decrepit vaudevillian in tattered clothes and smudged greasepaint, desperately clutching his ukelele while surrounded by the evidence of a recent bender. It is, in effect, Judd’s early Enz persona gone to seed, and you could hear these new songs in the same way. They are full of giddy dissonances; an upbeat pop song in which the protagonist can barely raise his head or smile (“Falling Off a Cloud”), the memoir of a psych patient mismatched to a jaunty music-hall melody (“Mindf---ed”). Although Judd’s multiple voices and harlequin-
patterned arrangements add to the sense of theatre, the man is visibly cracking behind the makeup. The key song is “Crazy Man”, Judd’s ode to Spike Milligan, whom he clearly idolises. And you will find some of the same qualities that defined Milligan’s work in Judd’s music: crazily entertaining, yet leaving one a little uneasy, knowing that its inspiration has come from dark places most of us wouldn’t want to go.
THE HUNT BRINGS US LIFE, Samuel Flynn Scott (Loop).
Samuel Flynn Scott writes more good songs than one band can handle, and with co-producer David Long on banjo, Lee Prebble on lap steel and Scott’s own guitars and mandolins, he brings to this batch a plunky, rustic quality that contrasts with the lusher sonics of the Phoenix Foundation, the band he normally fronts. The occasional rollicking accordion or oompahing horn section adds to the sense of a surreal folk music. But though Scott’s writing can be playfully oblique (“God’s legs are walking on my neck”; “My chopped liver is in love with me”), his shakily tuneful singing betrays the vulnerability that underlies even his most lurid imagery.
THE DANCE REDUCTION AGENTS, the Reduction Agents (Li’l Chief); LAWRENCE ARABIA, Lawrence Arabia (Honorary Bedouin).
Lawrence Arabia is the alias of sometime-Brunette James Milne. The debut album of his band, the Reduction Agents, offers a glimpse inside the jukebox of his mind. From the majestic, shimmering overture of “Cold Glass Tube” to the bubblegum anthem of “80s Celebration” to the tears-in-your-tequila country of “Last Night’s Love”, the album skips between styles, creating new hybrids in the transitions. What holds it all together is the adaptable band that Milne has assembled behind his own light and tuneful croon: bass player Jol Mullholland of Gasoline Cowboy and the Nothing, guitarist Ben Eldridge from the Heavy Jones Trio, and drummer Ryan McPhun of the Ruby Suns. Milne continues to use the Lawrence Arabia persona for his first solo disc. Here he is the DJ in some imaginary all-night radio show, dusting off what might be the lost singles of everyone from Syd Barrett to Lee Hazelwood. More lo-tech and low- key than the Reduction Agents, it also makes the humour that underlines his savvy songwriting more explicit.
PRE-PILL LOVE, Simon Comber (Carpathian).
Tired of postmodern irony? You won’t find any in the debut of Auckland singer-songwriter Simon Comber. “Early Spring Rain” and “Go Quietly” match appealing, Beatles-y melodies to unashamedly romantic lyrics. But the confessions grow darker in the almost painfully personal “Marylands”. Though the album feels underproduced and the writing is uneven, the best tracks work because they dare to be plain; the information is mundane (“we get the TV room to ourselves/’cause your mother’s got another new boyfriend”), the vocals guileless and the effect touching in its familiarity.
MR PHUDD AND HIS NOVELTY ACT, Phil Judd (www.philjudd.com)
THE HUNT BRINGS US LIFE, Samuel Flynn Scott (Loop)
THE DANCE REDUCTION AGENTS, the Reduction Agents (Li’l Chief)
LAWRENCE ARABIA, Lawrence Arabia (Honorary Bedouin)
PRE-PILL LOVE, Simon Comber (Carpathian)
