30 decimal points I would like to make about Simon Bookish

[imomus]

1/The Dewey Decimal System is a system for classifying books.

2/Today, however, I would like to classify the English singer Simon Bookish, who has a new album out next week, his third, "Everything/Everything" (Tomlab), "a big band song cycle about science and information".

3/The Devo-ish sleeve (which is very good) is by Anthony Stephinson.

4/Before Bookish released Everything/Everything he released Unfair/Funfair (2006) and Trainwreck/Raincheck (2007). Generic titles containing consistently quirky punctuation are good.

5/Simon Bookish is the stage name of Leo Chadburn. Leo/Simon (as I expect he would enjoy being called) is very tall and always looks more interesting than anyone else in the room.

6/Pitchfork called him "the long-lost son of Jarvis Cocker".

7/Other people (I still love you, powpowpow!) have said "he thinks he's Momus" and "but Simon Bookish is quite a bit better than anything he's done in years". Grrr!

8/Tracks on the Simon Bookish Myspace page make it seem as if this new album -- played by a fifteen piece band rather than Bookish's usual digital synths -- is a great leap forward, a coming-of-age.

9/It is therefore time to say some things about Simon Bookish.

10/But first, let's watch him performing a song called Interview, from his previous album.

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11/ I like the way the backing track is almost Brian Eno's Golden Hours, which is probably my favourite Brian Eno song ever.

12/ The repeated refrain "Queen Victoria", and Bookish's outlandish garb, make me think of him as a futuristic "New Victorian Dandy" type.

13/A typical Bookish lyric: "the royal meteorologist's expression is pained". This is refreshing as a break from "let's hump and grind one more time", but not refreshing if you set your watch by Divine Comedy lyrics.

14/Reviewing Ocky Milk, Simon Bookish SLASH Leo Chadburn kindly called me "one of the most ingenious, pranksterishly self-aware musicians around". He criticized my Jamaican accent (correctly), though, and thought some of my friendly songs were mawkish.

15/If I might be allowed to criticize back, I would say that I find something emotionally attenuated (not mawkish enough) in Simon Bookish songs. Where, gentlemen, is the soul?

16/If Interview has the sound of Golden Hours, it certainly doesn't have the soulfulness of the Eno song.

17/People Simon Bookish has been compared to in reviews: Pulp, The Divine Comedy, Momus, Steve Reich, Marc Almond, David Bowie, Laurie Anderson.

18/People I would compare him to: David Cunningham, Wire, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, The Books, Dickon Edwards, Idle Tigers.

19/Artists I would not compare him to, but might compare to each other (because they're all out of control, dark, subconscious, soulful and fascinating to me): PiL, Tricky, No Bra.

20/No Bra's Susanne Oberbeck might be the only person in the room more extraordinary-looking than Simon Bookish, if a room were to exist where they both were.

21/I don't know why, but No Bra songs like She Was A Butcher and Doherfuckher touch me in a way Simon Bookish songs don't. Perhaps because, as Susanne says, "for me music is about relating emotion". There's something vulnerable and dangerous there. No Bra songs are "bad", but in a good way.

22/Boomkat classifies the new Simon Bookish album as "laptop folk / americana", which is completely weird, especially since the American empire has this week officially fallen. Laptop folk / Americana is the category my Folktronic belongs in, but not his Everything/Everything.

23/Simon Bookish asked John Talaga -- Fashion Flesh -- to do a remix for him for a single called Leo Being Simon Bookish.

24/Simon attended the Guildhall School of Drama and Music in the Barbican.

25/In 2004 Simon presented Fear of Music, a deconstruction of the work of Talking Heads at Limehouse Town Hall.

26/David Byrne played a track from Everything/Everything on his podcast recently.

27/Not Wanting To Say Anything About John Cage is an art piece Simon Bookish has presented.

28/He has also made a new score for Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk CIrcle at the National Theatre, and appeared in the production as The Singer.

29/I would like to inform you that I approve of Simon Bookish's new Tomlab release wholemindedly.

30/But perhaps not, alas, wholeheartedly.

Comments

Re: ha!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Would you deny that American literature is terrible right now?

ALL American literature? You may be able to make generalizations like that about a country of nine million, but not one of over 300 million. Writers who live here can't keep up with what's going on, let alone some dryasdust in Oslo. That's why such broad statements are seen by Americans as incredibly silly and presumptuous.

There is a difference between arrogance due to perceived birthrights and arrogance as the result of studies within a field.

Yes, there is: The second is even more intransigent when it is wrong. Infallibility is not something one can acquire in a subjective field of study like literature. One only acquires opinions, however qualified they may be.

[bokmala.livejournal.com]

"If Americans were so artistically insignificant, why would the Europeans in the epicenter of all things worthwhile give a damn?"

Horace Engdahl probably doesn't give a damn, actually.
But some of us do, because we are hoping for more. And if you detect a certain bitterness, think less of "jilted girlfriends" and more of disappointment.

We don't really care that you think Oslo's in Sweden and that you can't locate a few insignificant countries on maps. It is not the lack of curiosity for the world outside America that bothers us so much as the results (a literature with a parochial tendency, and, god forbid, the "bomb-bomb-bombing of iran")

But you are of course right, arrogance is never a good thing.