‘Vast is back – and he’s lost the fucking plot’ – so warns the press release. Given Vast’s past output, that’s quite a claim, so I brace myself some something truly unhinged. Personally, I’ve long maintained that plot’s overrated, and on the evidence of ‘Touch & Go’, I’d say Mr V hasn’t so much lost the plot as torn it up and swallowed it, along with a handful of assorted drugs and a litre of tequila. But then, all the evidence says he’s a nutty bugger, so it could just be how he’s wired.
The album flies off with lead single and title track ‘Touch & Go’ a wibbly-wobbly manic funk spasm that bums Prince with a cattle prod as it bumps and grinds dementedly. It’s perhaps the most sensible track on the album.
If the hyperactive electro groove of ‘Smudge Cabin’ collides with some dizzy synths and a surf guitar break sounds like a complete aberration, then the pun-laden daftness of ‘Testify’ is deliberately bollocks and exits as the very essence of ‘cack pop’. Because, for all its knowing naffness, both lyrically and in its use of budget Casiotone sounds, it’s clever in its wordplay and is, ultimately, a deceptively decent tune disguised as a budget hoedown.
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The piano-led ballad ‘Golden Tooth’ rocks a mellow country vibe, and it’s back to 80s electroclash on ‘The Sting’; ‘Split the Difference’ comes on like Har Mar Superstar, a sleek soulful exterior providing a smooth sheen for some snarkey as fuck lyrics.
If you think theatrical oompah and a self-help relaxation track with a twist shouldn’t feature on the same album, the perhaps this isn’t the album for you. But if you thrive on incongruity that goes far beyond postmodern hybridity, then Mr Vast is your man.
Half smart-arse, half plain weird, wholly unpredictable, ‘Touch & Go’ is as whappy as hell, for sure, but the execution is far from cack-handed.
Mr Vast Online
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