Sock Free Hideaway

BEATS OF LOVE 

130. Mind Bomb LP by The The 

REFLECTING ON the first time, I went back to Jockey Slut's infamous afters and painfully struggled to break into conversation. I kept looking at my kid sister and she kept looking at me whilst looking mainly at the flat itself. I'd just sat in Bugged Out dipping speed into my brandy and coke and was already feeling empty whilst everyone else was bursting full of life.

I suppose the awkwardness served some purpose, as on subsequent nights after the ice broke someone introduced me to a lank-haired dealer who sold E's. I began dipping them into my drinks too, so became happier. Whilst everyone else got involved in relationships and business, I just carried on with this same stifling routine until it finally became too boring. Boring for me, and for everyone else.

I couldn't work over forty hours a week, then party for twenty and keep the musical passion I needed to be interesting to myself. What this self indulgent masterpiece is full of, is passion. It drives Matt Johnson's concept album with its intensity and sparkle whilst harnessing a great musical response from a quality team of players. I thought Gravitate to Me was the cut, but listening back now, I can see a cohesion that makes every single track equally enthralling. 

There's his prophesies about America and the Middle East that explode with rich metaphors and his sharp musical vision. It's a shame the label feared him being seen as the Salman Rushdie of song and pulled their weightier first single. He'd gone on a strange diet and forced some of his band to do the same to reach this unsound level of intensity that helped him see into the future. An intensity that speaks directly to our human soul and, for the short while, it is playing, helps us untangle this mess we call life with a lot more passion. 

What is truly remarkable is how utterly now it sounds. That I was in that flat talking up Acid Eiffel whilst forgetting all about this mighty album speaks volumes about the folly of youth.