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Review: 'Phobophobes ft. Will Self'
'Human Baby'   


-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Catalogue No: '25th November 2016'

Our Rating:
I quite liked Will Self’s earlier work. I also met him briefly on a number of occasions at book signings. On one of these occasions, circa 2003, I called him a twat. Sort of. The context was that I was curious to know if the quote attributed to him in one of Stewart Home’s novels (‘Stewart Home is a nasty little skinhead’, which was, as I explained, countered by a quote attributed to Stewart Home, ‘Will Self is a twat’) was genuine. He diplomatically replied that referring to Stewart as ‘a nasty little skinhead’ was a ‘subjective’ opinion, and took my explanation of the question well, at least in that he still signed my copy of How The Dead Live. Unfortunately, while I still appreciate his short stories and admire him as a journalist, his 700+ page novels have failed to grip me for a fair while, and signed hardback copies of both How the Dead Live and The Book of Dave remain unfinished, returned to my bookcase.

No matter. It’s not hard to comprehend why linguistic obscurists and all-round smart-arses, Phobophobes, approached Will Self to feature in their promo vid, and credit to both Self and the band, they do compliment one another. Self is an admirable orator, and what’s more, there’s something quite touching about it all: the poem Self reads is by the band’s late guitarist George Bedford Russell, who passed away in June.

‘Human Baby’ is described as a ‘Brixton garage / psych rock Talking Heads meets Jim Morrison concoction’, and it’s far out and imaginative, and works infinitely better than the write-up may suggest. It helps that as much as it’s quirky, it’s a decent tune with a tidy hook. The video ain’t bad either, and you can watch that here:

  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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