England Is A Garden. Cornershop.
Live music is scarce as hell right now. Announced concerts and festivals have been cancelled or moved to unlikely dates. So there's nothing to do but download and download and listen and listen. As an aperitif, I listened to a series of my vinyls from the sixties, seventies and beyond, with intonation or rhythmic errors inadvertently giving the songs a lovely authenticity. The spinning turntable and oversized sleeves with lots of information were a nice retrospective.
The main course, prepared from new albums - thought to be released in 2020 - includes albums by British band Cornershop, for example. On March 6, the ninth CD in the series, England is a Garden, hit the shelves. Listening to the album, time seems to stand still. The sound of the recordings, the arrangements and the vocals are a throwback to many years ago. It doesn't detract from the quality, however, and is more a sign of insistence on tried and tested practices that work. At the opening of Cash Money, number eight, the listener is reminded of the successful Brimful of Asha (number one in 1998), which has a similar, almost infantile pop song, referring over and over to SP (Single play), small records with only one song on each side. The album England is a Garden has twelve tracks. Longer tracks only appear in the second half. The beginning is taken care of by simple pop songs and, in the case of the interludes King Kongs and Morning Ben, as well as the title track England is a Garden, short instrumentals. The very first track St. Marie Under Canon has the usual hammond-like onset to a percussive rhythm, accentuated by a slow virbla transition that is one of the typical elements by which the listener easily recognizes Corneshop. Simple guitar riffs, clear construction of verses and choruses is the virtue of all the material presented by the Leicester musicians. Although the basic line-up includes only guitarists, vocalists, percussionists, drums, bass guitar, keyboards and sitar, strings and flute are often heard on the album. The omnipresent political undertones are evident in Everywhere That Wog Army Roam, for example, where reference is made to the acronym used for the words Western Oriental Gentleman (WOG), clearly with an ambition for controversy. Tjinder Singh, the band's leader, along with Ben Ayres, Avtar Singh and David Chambers, are the founding members of the group, whose name is inspired by the most common livelihood of Indian immigrants to Britain, namely running a "corner shop". Since its founding in 1991, Cornershop has been a group with political views, which it publishes through its colourful lyrics. The musicians have been close to the Labour Party, addressing the problematic statements of Morrisey and Clapton and opposing Brexit. Whatever their political stances, one thing is undeniable, Cornershop are a quintessential Britpop band successfully using elements of indie rock and electro dance. And they've released a good album again.