Now this is really something. Jeremy Tuplin, a man who seems to be some parts Jake Thackray and some parts Jarvis Cocker and makes of it a fabulous composite of arch, reflective thought in Pink Mirror, his wonderful second album of earlier this year.
Not everything comes off but most of it does and when he gets it right, he really gets it right. A concoction of eccentric ambition, that tips its hat to great, mostly English artists of the late Sixties and early Seventies as well as literary ones such as Firbank and Isherwood from a previous age. Tuplin twists new shapes and breathes fresh life that's remarkably contemporary into these inspirations.
On Bad Lover this comes across as Kevin Ayers fronting Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine in their Neon Boys period. Elsewhere Bowie, Ferry, Eno and Barrett haunt proceedings but always in a very good way. Louche and wry by turn, there's an enormous amount to enjoy and admire here.
Lyrically alive and musically ambitious, Pink Mirror has plenty of antecendents, but does them all proud, forging a lounge lizard identity for Tuplin, an aesthete skin he inhabits utterly. There aren't many new musicians emerging nowadays with such fully formed sheer personality as this. Marvellous record.
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