According to Stephen Coates, he started creating music to try and recreate the sounds he heard in his childhood home, “the cracking of radios playing swing and easy listening in some distant roomâ€, putting these sounds to subversive use, much like his main influences Serge Gainsbourg and Ennio Morricone. It’s a rather strange mix of styles, almost extravagant pop songs, but with ticking electronica, and otherworldly exotica, cabaret, and psychedelia…
Released on Six Degrees, the album features special guest appearances by Cibelle, The Puppini Sisters, David Piper, Aurelia Thierree and Moses Strongpeace. Coates manages to use technology to his advantage, but turns it on itself to create something very personal and human, something from an era long gone, of great warmth, but with a very distinctive mystical bent. You’d almost think Coates has multiple personalities while playing this album, and this portrayal is where it lacks for me, it doesn’ seem to have any focus, meandering all over the place through the sixteen tracks, and straying into kitsch territory on too many occasions.
Wayne Stronell
