The prolific and eccentric Birmingham-born Lawrence, known also for cult indie-pop bands Felt, Denim and this iteration (previously called Go-Kart Mozart) continues his small, later-career bloom with brilliantly catchy, quirky synth-pop with echoes of 70s glam and a touch of Sparks, and lyrics fun, clever, throwaway, droll, dark, trippy and melancholy. However, it’s not a new album as such, but a reworked version of Go-Kart Mozart’s second album, 2005’s ironically titled Tearing Up The Album Chart, and comes with a note that Lawrence is “renovating the past for the sake of the future”, as well as riding on the success of Will Hodkinson’s excellent recent award-winning book, describing experiences of the artist’s many quirks and ups and downs in Street Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence. Here then, several tracks co-written with previous collaborator Terry Miles, packed with amusing lyrics and fantastically catchy tunes, brilliant synthy numbers with an Ian Dury-level wordsmithery and pop panache, including opener Summer Is Here about a mysterious and possibly fantasy girlfriend who doesn’t appear in cold weather, the culture of the work-shy in Selfish & Lazy and Greedy, and Fuzzy Duck’s squeakily quacking list of surreal, likely drug-induced stream-of-consciousness images: “Catapilla / Comus/ Cosmic Eye/ Eclection/ Forest, Trees/ Plastic/ Penny/ Agnes Strange/ Wooden Horse/ One Two Three/ Rainbow Folly/ Hunter Muskett/ Hungry Wolf/ Mouse/ Mighty Baby/ Magic Mixture/ Music Box/ Ginhouse” all because “Fuzzy Duck took some funny stuff / And Fuzzy Duck were scared / Hairy Chapter / Deaf, Cuckoo/ Flasket Brinner/ Shakey Vick/ Poor Fuzzy Duck has had enough/ Was feeling very sick/ Tickawinda!”. Pop music in a whole new dimension. Other perky highlights include the fast and furious A Lorra Laughs With Cilla (the former TV presenter and 60s pop star Cilla Black), a drug fix with Donna and the Dope Fiends, and closer City Centre. Lawrence is a very under-the-radar national treasure, perhaps lacking commercial success because of his oddball, uncompromising, strange, stubborn, self-deceiving vaingloriousness, but still worth celebrating as a brilliant songwriter. See also the Go-Kart Mozart album of 2018, Mozart’s Mini-Mart, and catch him if you can. Out on Cherry Red Records.
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