And it’s a Shamble-Ho to you, my mine fillies, and would you know it’s a Hi-De-Shamble to you too.
With the pleasantries out of the way, I think it’s time we got down to brass tacks. Cut the crap. Got to really mutually beneficial solution. Mano a mano. With a cherry on top. Without messing around, or elongating sentences, or looking for a quick getaway, or even- HOLY GONADS, BANANAMAN, HERE, ON A SUNDAY!? LAURIE AWAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaay.
Ah. OK, well, the truth is I’m very bloody tired today. I made the unfortunate mistake of ‘going’ on a ‘run’, if you can call ‘stumbling’ ‘vaguely’ towards ‘a park’ that. Then I ate a massive bowl of gnocchi and forgot to do Shambletracks until after midnight.
But it’s fine, guys, gals, centaurs, goblins and any other marginalised high fantasy beast! I’ve got something upbeat to shake you out of the funk, whether you spread across the sofa on Sunday night or sloppily dragging yourself to work, school or The Camelot School of Jiggery-Pokery and other Wizard Activities on Monday morning.
Yes, it’s everyone’s favourite secret scientologist and genre-hopper Beck ‘Beck’ Hansen, screeching in at the last second (just in time for your morning break, I suppose?), guitar and hand and a hell of a tune up his non-wizarding sleeves. ‘Girl’, taken from his 2005 album Guero, is a bleep-blork-tastic tale of summer love and the singer’s admission that ‘I know I’m gonna make her die / Take her where her soul belongs’. It’s really cute like that.
It’s a choice cut of gameboy sound samples, pumping acoustic guitar and fevered slide playing, combined with little snips of other clips to round out the sound. Aided by the amazing production of the Dust Brothers and Tony Hoffer (Tonys are always great), the rest of the album is also a electronically shaken up feast of similarly upbeat romps. Other favourites – if you ask me, which you are, just so we’re clear – are bombastic opener ‘E-Pro’ and ‘Black Tambourine’, which has an incredible ASCII Art video.
Guero as an album is a natural successor to his madly popular LP smash Odelay rather than Beck’s previous album, Sea Change, which is a bit of a mopey ballad mine (which is no problem – ‘Lost Cause’ is one of the greatest fucking songs ever written, but might be a bit distracting on a grey, cold Monday Morning). It’s well worth ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-checking out, you little minxes.
Till next time, make mine a quadruple scoop with extra chocolate sauce, tickle my hammock and hand me a badger on a plate of wasps,
Laurie x