2017...

Greetings Swipelings...


Well, what a shower of unholy shit that was. 2017, I mean. Blimey, what a cacktastrophe of a year. Easier to name who didn't die than those we very sadly lost. So many luminaries - Daniels, Dickman, Corbett. Rossi, Di Canio, Peroni, that one whose Dad looks the spit of Iggy Pop (pretty much the whole Italian backline by reckoning), Martin, Michael, Carrie, Fischer, Dogger Bank, German Bight (those poor sailors are in for one feck of a year what with half the shipping forecast suddenly popping its clogs). The list is almost endless even without all the poor sods in Aleppo. And then, to top it all, Bert Kwouk goes and snuffs it. I spent half the year checking my own pulse just to make sure I was still alive - and even that was nip and tuck some days, especially during a Copydex flashback. So, for small blessings, we are thankful.

And then, of course, there was the political situation. One minute I'm sunning myself on some exotic shore with various scantily clad economic migrants of no fixed gender persuasion larding on the factor 50, casually swilling down a breezer or two, the next I find I'm living in a country doing its damnedest to turn the clock back to 1973. Oh sure, the music and the flares were great. And the three day weeks, casual sexism and who can forget the blackouts. Jesus, I had a fair few of those. Boy, I could really knock the stuff down back then. Anyway, that's the last time I holiday in Albania, that's for sure. And then there was Brexit. Crisis on a bike, what have you silly sods gone and done? I mean, I was hardly the biggest fan - overwrought, top down, authoritarian, inflexible, rarely seeming even to be cognisant of the UK's existence let alone its interests and increasingly dominated by neo-fascist nations from the former soviet bloc. But as song contests go, Eurovision was a beacon of hope for many and its passing will surely leave an incredible void in the lives of many. 

Well, it's done now. And we've got Trump to...er hem...look forward to as well. Dark days indeed. But, hey ho, where there's a will there's a way...as the saying goes, 'what doesn't kill you probably leaves you stuck to the ironing board covered in someone else's vomit until the emergency services can get to you...' Onwards and upwards. It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to get to Aberystwith....and countless other meaningless platitudes that will serve no purpose whatsoever when pitted against the forces of inhuman corporatism and the neo-liberal apocalypse.

Still, on the plus side...

After a year in the creative doldrums, I'm happy to report that I'm back at work again on a new Long Player. Eno's been popping over with his synthesizer-in-a-knapsack. I don't know where he picks these things up. Last time I went to Curry's, I couldn't even find a hair straightener. Anyway, he's really been on fine form and in between ginger snaps and Peter Cook impersonations he's been challenging me to try to recapture the dizzy heights of our late 1970s oeuvre (I'm never sure how you spell that, less still what it actually means...) I must admit that I was initially reluctant to resume our partnership as I was finding the principle of leaving everything to chance was getting a bit tiresome. I mean, yes, using the oblique strategies cards can open you up to leftfield notions and take a piece in unexpected directions. I don't know, maybe it was just me or rotten luck, but for whatever reason, I just seemed always to end up getting Mr Bun the Baker. And there's only so much you can do with a bag of self-raising flour, a bit of bicarb and a few currants. Well, at least in an experimental electronic music sense.

Right, that's enough waffling from me. Let's get this party started. Here, in the unlikely event that you haven't already played it to death, is a brief preview of the unfettered joys to follow. That's me on synthesized basso profundo and Eno's doing interesting things with a vocodered hairdryer and a bag of bathing crystals. It's a dazed and battered slice of almost-romanticism in a jaded and cynical world. Think David Niven channeling Rik from Casablanca while his plane is shot down on a daring mission to bomb the Acropolis and hurtles to near certain oblivion somewhere just south of Bruxelles . It's not much, but it will at least give you something to wave your zippo at until the fuel runs out....

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob