The Jazz Butcher Press Spiral Scratch
October, 1989

Album Review: Big Planet, Scarey Planet

Spiral Scratch (UK)
October, 1989

Credit: Dominic Mohan

Big Planet, Scarey Planet

Early 1989 was, indeed a strange and desperate time after all that triumphalist Tory looting that had been going on. We listened to a lot of hip-hop and soul music at the time, and I think that we considered ourselves sufficiently HARD to take the whole fucker on in an l.p. Possibly with a more "clued-in" producer and a bit more self-discipline we could have come up with something like what we were looking for.

Two words always spring to mind when listening to Pat Fish and the Butchettes - Lloyd Cole. They cause a real commotion on tracks like New Invention , with its Rattlesnakes guitar sound. Lyrically, this song is a wonderful critique of England - Fish despairs at "Sex On The Phone" and "The Hit Man And Her" (but do you blame him?) This is Thatcher's real Britain: all mod cons, alcoholism - a Tory twilight zone.

Line Of Death initially about life in West Virginia, ingeniously electrifies Deliverance's dueling banjos and turns into a kind of Arab chant with echoing vocals.

This album sounds like it took years of meticulous composing and recording, rather like Cole's work, yet the JB's last album, Fishcotheque , was released only a year ago!

A bit of jit git on The Word I Was Looking For mixes with sax and Housemartins small-pop to produce an up-tempo criticism of society's shallowness: "If ideas were legal tender, lots of people would be broke."

Fish has carved himself a real singer/songwriter niche for the nineties. Outstanding tracks including Bicycle Kid - a Hitchcock-esque (Robyn Hitchcock, not Alfred) look at growing up and new parental treatment. Fish almost despairing at the family. Musically simple. Lyrically superb. Exciting overall. Lloyd Cole And The Commotions are dead.

Long Live The Jazz Butcher.