Sheffield's Crooked Man released a new album last Friday, Crooked Stile. It is packed with bangers, many of them well into long song territory. The second song on the album is Don't Leave Me This Way, eleven and a half minutes of electronic mayhem, a massive bassline and deeply soulful female vocal, turning the Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes song inside out, into a modern basement classic. The second half, past the six minute mark, goes off, the synths even more distorted, and after the breakdown at seven minutes, it builds back up for an intense final few minutes.
As well as several Crooked Man originals there are two further covers. The first is also a long song, an eight minute version of Fleetwood Mac's Big Love warped into dark, epic, bouncy dancefloor manna- if Fleetwood Mac sounded more like this, I'd be more tempted to listen to them.
The album also has a long song with long term friend and collaborator Roisin Murphy, Projection, and finishes with a cover of a fellow son of Sheffield, Jarvis Cocker's 2006 tribute to the wonderful people that run the world, Jarvis' more polite Running The World re-titled by Crooked Man simply as Cunts. It's just two minutes thirty three seconds long but says a lot in that time. Donald Trump, and all who follow him, this one's for you...
Crooked Man's album can be found in full at Bandcamp. Here's the Jarvis original, a nineteen year old protest song that has lost none of its power or relevance.
'It's the ideal way to order the world/ Fuck the morals, does it make any money?'
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