There’s been a massive influx of strange and crazy stuff in the last month or two, and ‘Grievous Bodily Charm’ by Mr Vast really ups the ante in the weird stakes. But unlike so many of the other bizarre releases I’ve got my lugs round of late, ‘Grievous Bodily Charm’ is incredibly listenable, and demonstrates a sharp pop sensibility – musically, if not lyrically.
For those concerned with biography, Mr Vast is the front man of self-styled ‘cack music’ exponents Wevie Stonder. If you’re unfamiliar with cack music, don’t worry – so is everyone else, although the name pretty much speaks for itself. ‘Grievous Bodily Charm’ is his solo debut.
Embracing elements of electro-pop, dance and indie (and a whole host of other stuff, including the kitchen sink – literally as well as metaphorically: on ‘Bliss’, he prates away on the virtues of domestic chores), Vast takes on a host of improbable topics and intones on them in a crisp Queen’s English that occasionally veers into mockney wide-boy (or some kind of Ian Dury rip-off on acid) and, well, whatever as the mood takes, it would seem. Clever bastard indeed. ‘Grievous Bodily Charm’ is an album that’s all about the eclecticism, and all about the improbability. ‘Toast always lands butter-side down’ he pronounces in the most serious tones on ‘Buttercyde’ as though it were a matter of life or death of a revolutionary scientific discovery, atop a clanking sonic backdrop worthy of early DAF.
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‘Atlantis’ comes on like Cure remixed by Portishead, while ‘Teflon County’ sounds more like a rehearsal recording of Pavement jamming a Bob Dylan song they can’t quite remember… then there’s the ABC-style slick disco pop of ‘Process of Illumination’. It’s electronic-based pop that’s beyond quirky, taking the everyday, the humdrum and the mundane and rendering it in a fashion so as to appear from a parallel universe. But then to throw it all off-kilter, ‘Family Values’ goes all Hi-NRG, while ‘ Henry the 8th’ is a full-on rock-out, on which Vast – sorry, that’s Mr Vast – comes on like a hard rock Peter Murphy.
Not so much ‘cack’ as ‘cracked’, it’s warped, whappy, and brain-bending, and I absolutely love it.
Mr Vast Online
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