Send "Robyn Hitchcock " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Bbc |
 One of the UK’s most endearing and enduring psychedelic treasures, Robyn Hitchcock has long balanced consistency with a prolific creative nature that shows no sign of abating. Propellor Time is the third album Hitchcock has recorded since 2006 with his Venus 3, a trio with impressive CVs, numbering Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey on bass, ex-Ministry sticksman Bill Rieflin on drums, and REM’s Peter Buck on 12-string and acoustic guitars. Further celebrity cameos include Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, kindred spirit Nick Lowe and ex-Smith/current-Crib Johnny Marr, underscoring the high esteem in which Hitchcock is held by his peers, but never overshadowing his most idiosyncratic talents with their contributions.Hitchcock’s self-confessed key influences include Revolver-era Beatles, Dylan at his peak and Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, artists who’ve inspired a deluge of overly-reverent copycats in the decades since. No retro-poseur, Hitchcock has instead been refracting their music through a most inimitable and idiosyncratic filter since his Soft Boys first surfaced in the late 70s, and while echoes of his heroes are present within Propellor Time’s effervescent melodies and charming tunefulness, the voice is always unmistakeably his own. That voice is one informed by a most contagious optimism, delivered with a word-lover’s wit which never cloys. The sweetly folky idle of Luckiness finds Hitchcock celebrating good fortune with a Steve Harley-esque twang, a zephyr of a song as uplifting as finding a tenner on the bus. The romantic swoon of opener Star of Venus is soft-hearted and starry-eyed enough to charm any Flaming Lips fan, while aching closer Evolove debates the existential questions with a warmth and wisdom that’ll stop you in your tracks. It’s this normally-sanguine lyrical tenor that makes the album’s darker turns all the more poignant: the melancholic Ordinary Millionaire, penned with Johnny Marr, sounds haunted with an enigmatic regret; the dreamy stream-of-consciousness of John in the Air, meanwhile, is underpinned by a sense of psychedelic unease, an eerie tension....full text |
| Musicomh |
| Good old Robyn Hitchcock. All he had to do was hang around for long enough and his gentle blend of psychedelic pop-tinged countryish folk was bound to come into fashion eventually. He dovetails with the current vogue for Twisted Folk/UK Americana so well it's ridiculous. Purveying the sort of lo-fi, blue-eyed blues that's so gentle you'll believe he'd stop at a crossroads only to let a family of baby ducks cross, rather than to sell his soul to the devil, it's taken him the best part of four years to develop Propellor Time, yet it still sounds as if it was recorded in the middle of a church hall with the contents of the local Oxfam shop's vinyl box as backing tracks. Opener Star Of Venus sounds like a suburban British version of The Byrds. The Afterlife steals its riff from the Velvet Underground and its lyrics from an issue of Woman's Realm, while Ordinary Millionaire is unbearably fragile, reminiscent of a lost Suede b-side that Brett Anderson might have written had he grown up without anything bad ever happening to him in his entire life. This makes it by far the album's best track, of course, but it's a jewel amongst many....full text |
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