Misty's Big Adventure - The Black Hole (2005)
The Black Hole was included in a poll submitted by David Goody. These are his words on the record, followed by mine.
David: Being a proud Coventry resident it’s no surprise that an album from a 7 piece West Midlands ska tinged collective with a grumpy lead singer would feature high in my top 40. But instead of The Specials I’ve gone for Birmingham based Misty’s Big Adventure, so what’s going on? Firstly it’s worth noting that Misty’s Big Adventure are an exceptional live act (where eighth member Erotic Volvo joins them - a kind of Bez re-imagined by David Lynch, wearing a costume covered in blue inflatable gloves) and had the decency to play a free festival in the park just around the corner from Joe. The Black Hole is the album that best captures the live experience. It’s the band’s sophomore effort and clearly reflects a honed instinct for how to work a crowd. It’s also where the ska influence is to the fore.
Lyrically the album balances despair and rage at the world around with a profound desire to fight on and make a better world - as if it were channelling the philosophy of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki “even amidst the hatred and carnage, life is still worth living. It is possible for wonderful encounters and beautiful things to exist”. Smart Guys Wear Ties rages against the identikit banality of office life and whilst Evil rages against the simplistic binary classification of human complexity. Both feel like The Fall and Sleaford Mods tied to a high energy rollercoaster. Elevator Escalator Stairs celebrates the perverseness of opting out of modern day automation and Everything’s Odd takes a step back to look at the world aghast.
Yet humour and absurdity drench the entire album as “you and me, and the iron lung, go beep beep beep beep beep beep beep”. The album also confidently strays into classic indie pop territory with Herman Dune-ish Story Of Love and the song that was my gateway into the band - She Fills The Spaces In My Mind - where “every word I say is a lead balloon, that forms a multi-coloured carpet on the floor of the room”. It’s an album that simultaneously fills you with inane dancing joy and lets you curse the world with a total release akin to primal scream therapy.
The album hurtles headlong towards the finale of The Wising Up Song where lead singer Grandmaster Gareth opines “why must we go to the disco, I don’t like the music they play”, before taking these petty grumbles about a Friday night and turning them into a mantra of a man who heads with a spoon towards a mountain that is blocking out the light of the village to try and move it. “But you will never succeed” the villagers cry. “Yes, but someone needs to start” he replies. And that’s the album in a nutshell, a futile determination to succeed in light of all the odds that gives meaning and purpose to the chaos. With some really catchy, danceable tunes along the way.
Joe: I lived in Coventry when this record was released and saw Misty's Big Adventure a couple of times around the same time, possibly because my friends were supporting or there was nothing else to do in Coventry. I remember enjoying them a hell of a lot but I was never tempted to pick up a CD - clever pop music was not something I was really into at the time.
It's something I'm a bit more tolerant of these days. David says ska influence but the brass and everything else suggests chamber pop to me. That's something I've learned to appreciate through the work of The Duckworth Lewis Method. Listening to this album for the first time, I think I recognise 4, maybe more, of the songs. Not bad for recollections of gigs from a long time ago. OK - maybe they played those songs at the free festival in Cotteridge Park a few years - but I still think it's a testament to the catchiness David mentions.
An enjoyable album of varied pop styles. Give it a listen.
As discussed via IM the Duckworth Lewis Method eponymous album is bit of an omission from my top 40. I probably got paralysed with indecision looking across the Neil Hannon oeuvre.
ReplyDeleteThe "it's not ska, it's chamber pop" response is interesting. It's certainly not old school Jamaican ska, but in my mind it sits alongside early 2-Tone records such at The Specials and One Step Beyond whereas later Misty's albums such as Family Amusement Centre and Funny Times are more akin to More Specials and later Madness albums like Keep Moving.
In terms of chamber pop and "clever pop songs" I'm intruiged if you've heard The Leisure Society who dance around the boundary of baroque chamber pop and Radio 2 playlist with very knowingly constructed lyrics such as "a short weekend begins with longing" and "a softer voice takes longer hearing". I have a gentle but persistent love for them, though I think you might find them rather irksome.
Not heard them, but I'll put them on my future play list.
Delete