Jez Kerr, frontman and bass player for A Certain Ratio, has had an on-off solo thing going on for a few years. ACR have signed a deal with Mute and are planning a series of re-releases plus a new album so the solo thing is probably off for the moment but I revisited some of his solo tracks from 2012 recently and there are a couple you might like and may not have heard.
Reason I Feel Like An Alien has a dreamlike melody and an ACR-like vocal but this is more meditative and lost than ACR are. There's another version which is even spacier but I can't find a link to it right now. The video is pretty hypnotic too.
Rip You Right Back rides in on noises and a mechanical rhythm and stays right there, with Jez's monotone vocals sinking over the top. In different ways I can hear the influence of Brian Eno in both songs. The pair are off an album called Numb Mouth Eat Waste which you can still pick up in the usual places.
Marc Riley pulls a Jez Kerr tune out of the bag every now and then, but to be honest they usually go in one ear and out the other. I clearly need to pay more attention to Mr Riley. After playing each of these tunes twice, I stopped what I was doing, went off and purchased a physical copy of 'Numb Mouth Eat Waste' - I was that impressed. Thanks for showing me the error of my ways SA.
ReplyDeleteThat's what blogging's for.
ReplyDeleteThank you SA. ACR and all it's members deserve all the appreciation they receive and anything that brings their fantastic music to a wider audience should be encouraged. Kerr has one of the most appealing and distinctive deliveries in my mind. It might even be considered seductive.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of his 2014 single Control Myself. He has a couple quite compelling versions of JD songs on his Soundcloud page as well.