An artist’s first album is supposed to be a treasured thing: it’s their statement about who they are, what they’re about and, most importantly for the listener, what sort of music they make. An album where each track is just a looped sample over a breakcore remix of an 80s pop hit was a stroke of genius that obviously wowed Mike Paradinas enough to sign Shitmat (aka Kyler aka Henry Collins) to Planet Mu. A follow up album of what can loosely be termed “comedy breakcore’ followed in Full English Breakfest and, one 12†aside, that had been it until now.
Returning under a new pseudonym, Collins has kept the sense of fun that saved his work as Shitmat from utter mediocrity. Billed in the press release as a “concept album about the Norfolk village that Henry grew up in,†Pur Cosy Tales nominally “evokes feelings of childhood, warmth, wonder and memory.†Either Collins is pitching for an Arts Council grant or he’ royally taking the piss. Clocking in at 70 minutes 15 seconds and spanning 32 tracks, this is an album that really makes you feel its full length; track after track of bland, incessant plinky plonky electronica slowly dribbles out of the speaker.
Perhaps Collins’ whole artistry comes in highlighting how easy it is to make passable music in any electronic genre without ever really making anything that could be called good. If this is indeed his plan, then he has executed it masterfully: album #1 basically sold people a sample to play over their old records, album #2 was deeply average breakcore and album #3 is ripping the piss out of Wire reading, pseudo-academic fanboys. Whether you applaud this stunning artistry or decry him depends largely on how much you have spent to be in on the joke.
