Pop back to your Cornershop - Tiscali Music News

2002-04-22

Didn't some erudite hack say that the best albums take you on a journey?

Cornershop's new album, 'Handcream for a Generation' whisks you off a metaphorical Brick Lane into in a little VW van and sails you into the night.

Of the many journeys involved in this record, there is firstly a journey through musical genres.

The laid back dark funk of the album's opener, Heavy Soup, with its punchy brass and half-muttered James Browny announcements puts you in a relaxed mood to prepare you for the sheer variety of styles in play on the rest of the record.

You’ll find obscure but melodic pop (Staging the Plaguing Of The Raised Platform), 90's house (Music Plus 1), 60's acid rock (People Power), 70's glam (Lesssons Learned From Rocky 1 to Rocky 3), and noughties reggae (Motion the 11), to name but a few.

The men behind this adventourous escapade, Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres, have been absent for over three years, a period punctuated only by bizarre side projects such as 2000's Clinton album, Disco And The Halfway To Discontent.

This was a rambling, club-orientated experiment that, understandably, no one noticed.

The effervescent mood of their former number 1, Brimful of Asha, three years ago, celebrating Bollywood legend Asha Bosle, is very much still in existence.

There is a delightful playfulness and a will to experiement which permeates Cornershop's 2nd album.

The George Harrison twang and tabla of Spectral Mornings (Noel Gallagher cound't wait to get in there) is offset by the slighlty darker 'The London Radar' (an homage to flight announcements in a plane...), and as for 'Slip the Drummer One' - it contains perhaps the Funkiest and nastiest hook heard in a long while.

In a way, this is the ultimate Postmodern qalbum – a fiery melting pot of sounds, ideas, cultural references and styles.

Above all else though, this album is a joyous celebration of what is possible with music, and the real journey is made by the listener.

We are challenged by an album that celebrates the sheer variety and beauty of music in all its forms, in an industy where there is a pressure to pigeon-hole all too easily:

'I understand guns in the A & R office...'

Too many ideas on this journey for most? Maybe. But at least Cornershop are prepared to get on the plane rather than be stuck at the airport.