'Alex Cameron is your new favourite loser. Or, to put it more poetically he's music's rising connoissuer of failure. A character songwriter in the guise of a Lynchian cabaret act, he peoples his synthpop with stories more suited to AA meetings than song-and-dance routines. Meanwhile, his artistic persona embodies all the disappointment and desperation that showbusiness can foster. Dreams curdle over preppy drum machine beats. Spirits sink to soaring 80s melodies. His show is at once a deflation and a celebration of the idea of the entertainer.'
The album itself is called Jumping the Shark, from the infamous episode in Happy Days famously thought of as a nadir in popular TV history. The record would be higher, but it was actually originally released before 2016, (waiting for this year before an official label release), which leaves it languishing here in the high forties. It's nevertheless a very, very fine album that I've only just begun to listen to.
Another point of comparison from the Pitchfork review of the album where Cameron's sound is described as Nick Cave fronting Suicide. It's all there in closer Take Care of Business where a bank of synths bring things to a soaring close. Listen to it!
No comments:
Post a Comment