SCRITTI POLITTI - White Bread Black Beer Review

Audiences ignore the travails of an aesthete who digs Gaultier pants and Immanuel Kant. Critics are more stupid. But when the aesthete hires producer Arif Mardin and a coterie of New York’s finest musicians, outdoes Kate Bush in Fairlight synthesizer mastery, and listens to Debarge albums, the audience responds—and applauds....full text You could see this rather fine LP as a sonic voyage through every stage of Green Gartside’s 30-year career: dipping into lo-fi garage rock (‘Cooking’, ‘Dr Abernathy’), elegant guitar pop (‘Mrs Hughes’, ‘Road To No Regret’, ‘Robin Hood’), digital funk (‘Ellth Nuts’) and half a dozen lush synth ballads. The latter get a little sickly, if we’re honest, but the songwriting remains impeccably high, laden with smart pop hooks and couched in delicious Brian Wilson-style baroque harmonies. His best since ‘Songs To Remember’, at least....full text Green Gartside has returned to the label where he first made his name, but 20 years on both are very different entities. His famously honeyed voice remains intact, even as this collection, recorded entirely in his home, contrasts with the sometimes overproduced work that he was once famous for....full text