Joss Cope plays The Lexington, London 10th January 2019
What are bands for? To show a brotherhood of souls celebrated,
Men of a certain age showing simply the patterns within their own hearts,
And so it proves at The Lexington, London with Joss Cope and his cohorts,
Members of cult band Dexter Bentley; song primed, they stand ready
To serenade and to master both the night air around them
And a receptive crowd eager to each in turn play their part.
With Richard Bentley on bass, Mark Shaw on lead, and Simon Dye
On the keyboards, Ean Ravencroft’s stately drumming leads the strumming
Cope into song; they merge, a tested unit, at once, as there is nothing loose here;
All’s tidy, as Cope’s Unrequited Lullabies swoop and settle, making connections
To which everyone there can belong. Learn to Float sashays in with its Bowie Blue Jean
Style vocal shimmer, its perfect pop underlining the kind of fight we all face,
These are Brexit countered love songs Cope explains and one can read between
Every lyric of how today’s current crisis will mark and scar every surface and inevitably
Leave a stark trace. ‘Realise we’re all slowly sinking’ he sings and you can appreciate
How the island on which we are stumbling finds its true echo with the broken land
Kept inside. And yet with these musical compadres at hand, the song’s jauntiness
Still assists us, the act of positive thinking and singing is at least an audible way
To survive. She’s Gonna Change Your World serenades, but is she the past
Or a woman? Both are detected as this passion fuelled tale is revealed.
The agenda is set in which life and fate find joint focus and Cope and Band
Combine deftly a resonance all should feel. This group are not kids
And seeing them play, it feels noble. Their ease of performance
And sure fired skill holds great charm. They do not pretend with these songs.
Delivery is part of the message. Learn from the tales in their telling
And protest, though gentle can still exert full alarm.
Scales Falling cries through the notes as Bentley, Dye and Shaw forge emotion.
Ravenscroft serves the sweet feeling with his rhythmic array and control.
Cope’s call to the real after the long dream has ended is as affecting
As the silence surrendered after the losing of the only one you would hold.
‘She’s not what you think about her’, he sings and we can hear separation.
The upsurge of the chorus is indie song craft keeping score.

Photo by Paul Hudson
One can hear forty years of musical changes, from The Beatles, Byrds,
And The Monkees, through the Lotus Eaters, all the way up to the angels
That Boo Hewerdrine’s waited for. Healed is pure pop. Indefinite Particles,
Powers. Shaw solos discreetly, Bentley authoritative bass underlines,
Dye colours each verse with exuberant texture. Ravenscroft supervises
As the band campaign for ascension in variations of conventional 4/4 time.
Nobody knows This is Everywhere Brexits through, full of shades of Nick Lowe
And Costello. There is a taint of The House of Love and The Triffids rising like scent
From each sound. A touch of The Stone Roses too, unfurled on an increasingly
Inspiralled Carpet as Cope’s invocation to ‘Step outside and see whats really there..’
Grows profound. A Guy Like Me, is the gem that sets the evening’s sights into focus.
Cope’s call and confession is Johnny Cash meets Lou Reed.
It is a song made for the charts, if only the proper charts still existed,
With its superbly phrased statement economically dressed in slim jeans.
It is a stammer and strut,a defying cry for the sage ones, who have turned
Each dark corner and pulled down their shades to sunlight. One can hear the speedway
Ahead, as well as the lawnmower, rattling. One can see the leather jacket, the brylcream,
Captured in sound, through insight. So, here is knowledge and pop,
And knowledgeable pop through the ages, in a relatively short set,
All music that has passed the test is conveyed. Buoyancy and regret.
Vibrancy and clear warnings, neatly packaged now and presented
In a finely wrought form these friends made. Your Broken Heart Is Not For Sale
Closes all,played by a band who know song craft . Shepherding this most accomplished
Of albums across the wilderness we’re now in. We have been played something here
That moves beyond entertainment, as there is also instruction
Of how to survive and begin, whatever we need to conquer those
Who oppose us. We are the masters, monarchs of the lost, who’d be found
If we could only see through the smoke that is bred by all of those
Who would burn us. As Joss Cope now teaches; ‘ Behind the lines of laughter/
Lies the frown/Upon the face of he who wears the crown..’
Bands are Preachers. But unlike God’s, they’re the swimmers in a sea
Of constant change who can’t drown. Listen to the record and learn
Just what it is to breathe sweetly, even in a bitter time
There are echoes of salvations to come, within sound.
David Erdos 11/1/19
Unrequited Lullabies
by Joss Cope
“Learn To Float”, “Turned Out Nice Again” and “Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere” are thee stand out tracks for me. Although, with regards to “Nobody Knows…” I was expecting a cover version of the old Teardrop Explodes demo of the same title!!!
A good album n hope it does well for Joss.
Big up to the brothers Cope !!!!! Favorite track: Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere.
Your Broken Heart Is Not For Sale 00:00 / 03:12
|
|||
140g black vinyl in reverse board sleeve. Shrinkwrapped. Each vinyl order includes a CD in reverse board printed card wallet.
Includes unlimited streaming of Unrequited Lullabies via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
£15 GBP
CD in reverse board printed card wallet.
Includes unlimited streaming of Unrequited Lullabies via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
£7 GBP
£7 GBP
1.
|
Learn To Float 03:15
|
|||
2.
|
Familiar Faces 02:19
|
|||
3.
|
Cloudless Skies 03:07
|
|||
4.
|
Scales Falling 02:35
|
|||
5.
|
||||
6.
|
Turned Out Nice Again 04:02
|
|||
7.
|
||||
8.
|
Started Something 03:34
|
|||
9.
|
A Guy Like Me 02:41
|
|||
10.
|
Triumph Or Disaster 02:06
|
|||
11.
|
What’s The Plan? 02:40
|
|||
12.
|
Streaming 04:29
|
about
PRESS & QUOTES:
“A riot of jangling guitars, Psych Pop smarts, fuzz freak outs and off the wall psychedelia that, along with more current influences, channels Kevin Ayers and the “Canterbury Scene” possibly more than Syd Barrett and the hip London bands from the Sixties. It’s a wonderful record.” – Thee Psychedelicatessen
“A superb solo album…if you like the intelligent pastoral Psych of acts such as XTC, Robyn Hitchcock, The Blue Aeroplanes and Stephen Duffy then I can certainly recommend this.” – Retroman Blog
Born in the Midlands at the start of the swinging 60s, Joss Cope followed elder brother Julian to Liverpool aged 14 and got rapidly sucked in to the nascent post-punk scene there, meeting and playing with such future musical luminaries as Les Pattinson (Echo & the Bunnymen), Peter Wylie (Wah Heat) and Mike Mooney (Spiritualized).
He would go on to form the short-lived but influential Freight Train with Donald Ross Skinner and Barrett Douce, releasing the seminal debut album Man’s Laughter on Phil Smee’s Bam Caruso label in 1985. After Freight Train split when Douce joined the rival Mighty Lemon Drops, Cope moved to London and became part of the emerging Creation Records scene, playing with Crash… more
credits
released October 6, 2017
Joss Cope: vocals, guitar
Veli-Pekka Oinonen: lead guitar
Esa Lehtopuro: bass guitar
Ville Raasakka: drums
O’Reilly O’Rourke: mellotron, organ, piano
recorded at Taajuusvarjostin Helsinki by Arto Nevalainen
mixed by Ian Button