Well, this is certainly unusual. It’s hard to imagine two collaborators from more different backgrounds: Jude Cowan Montague, a journalist by trade with a PhD in film history and day-job as an archivist, and Wim Oudijk, Netherlands-based producer, arranger and songwriter best known for his work with Trespassers W between 1984 and 2000.
It was while cataloguing new stories for ITN that Montague began composing poetry based on obscure stories. This led to improvised music-based performances in variety clubs, which unb turn ultimately provided the basis of this album.
The fact they’ve never met in person makes the project even more intriguing when considering the practicalities of its creation. The two actually met via MySpace and this album was only possible thanks to the possibilities of modern technology.
The result is a collection of songs that contrast with one another individually and internally, seemingly constructed around contradictions and incongruities. The woozy, weirdy underwater cabaret of ‘The Green Bamboo Warrior’ couldn’t be more different from the theatrical chamber pop of the title track.
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Montague’s enunciation is – as you may expect from someone with an acting background – crisp, clear. She speaks and squeaks the Queen’s English, while Oudijk leaps from orchestral to folktronica and back again in a beat. ‘Hello Pussycat’ sounds like a straightforward alt-rock tune (mandolin solo aside) but the absurdist narrative contained in the lyrics. ‘The Mighty Seahorse’ encapsulates the whimsical nature of Montague’s poetry: ‘if you’re a tiny crustacean floating / just above and in front of a seahorse’s nostrils / you’ll never notice / right behind you / is the head of your enemy’. Her ‘found’ source material might not always make for the best scansion, but it never falls to the predictable at least.
At times, it’s hard to determine whether precociousness has strayed into pretentiousness, but there’s no question that they’ve indulged their playful, quirky sides and had a ball working on this.
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