Nowadays, anyone with a few rudimentary apps can give musical expression to their ideas. This inevitably means that significantly more chaff than wheat clamours for our attention but the upside is that we get to hear voices as original as that of Jonnie Common.
My promo copy of the CD came with a handwritten note on a postcard of a handsomely stocked Welsh dresser which reads: "Here's some actual pop music for a change".
In actual fact, Common is not Welsh but Scottish although the postcard image is appropriate as it tallies with the homely, down-to-earth charm of this album.
The bassline of the single, Shark, is a little reminiscent of Public Image Ltd's Poptones but Common's vocals are a world away from the ranting petulance of John Lydon. His dulcet tones are more like Kenny 'King Creosote' Anderson and exude a similar blend of worldly wisdom and wry domesticity.
Despite the breezy electro-pop arrangements and geeky humour there is a depth to these tunes that repays repeated listens. "Will my demons devour me?" Common asks himself on the closing track, ODB. Although he seems too grounded to let this happen, the fact that he embraces the possibility makes for some lively and unpretentious navel gazing.
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Take, for example, a short track like So And So, where a sparse piano backs poetic reflections the frailty of the human condition and includes the rhetorical question: "will I ever feel solid like a brick or a friendship?"
The gorgeously melodic Just Because is the nearest thing to a conventional pop song but chart hits rarely have such poignant lyrics as "My one and only apology falls on deaf ears and disappears"
In addition, he is not afraid to add some oddball experimental touches like sampled singing voice of an African woman which is cut and speeded up to add a surreal global dimension to Better Man.
The ideas here may be random and eccentric but they are held together by genuine charm. Common by name but not by nature, this is a man with a set of home truths that are well worth listening to.
Jonnie Common on Tumblr
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