Judge Smith 2023
Light entertainment from a radio-friendly persona of honorable firebrand.
Mr. Mckilowatts Dances
Humor has always seemed to belong in Judge Smith’s creations, even though it wasn’t obvious during his stint with a certain ensemble the English musician helped establish back in 1967 only to leave when his partner-in-rhyme Peter Hammill considered their progressive rock a serious enterprise. Later on, the well-attuned audience could glimpse the former artist’s smile even in “The Fall Of The House Of Usher” by the latter, let alone Smith’s solo oeuvre – save, perhaps, for faux-gloomy, if sarcastic, efforts such as the piano songs of "The Trick Of The Lock" that the veteran issued in 2022 – yet, he manages to suggest, there are more ways to deploy keyboards and give them a voice. Cue the idiosyncratically retrofuturistic raptures of “Mr. Mckilowatts Dances” which Joe Meek would kill for in a parallel world where ivories used to reign o’er guitars and Judge would emerge as an evil genius ready to rule the waves with his four oarsmen of apocalypse.
Still, listening to the album must leave no doubt as to who the four “O’s” of THE WEIRD ‘O’S NOVELTY QUARTET – O’Henry who handles Ondioline, O’Brian who harnesses Farfisa, O’Neill who hits xylophone and vibes, and O’Clare who hypnotizes Theremin – could be, because the manner of their performances will betray one man’s split-personality approach and allow Smith to weave a riveting yarn, teeming with quirky characters, without actually uttering a single word. He’s keeping it all rather concise, each of the 25 pieces on display cutting a rug around a two-minute mark, but substantial, as recurrent, mood-shifting tap-dance appearances of the platter’s protagonist demonstrate different patterns, from the catchy calypso and frivolous fugue of percussive opener “Electric Brindisi” to the pseudo-pentatonic ornaments of “Methyl Will Sooth A Tungsten Bowstring” and quasi-orchestral arabesques of “Wilful Polyphony With Woody Wine Viscosity” – and further on, to the of “Knockety-knock, In Knocks (My Private Number)” which focuses on forming a formidable, triumphant finale. However, no Judge’s follower is bound to expect a blues riff that “Baron Aquarium” shoots through marimba-punctuated cosmic passages, or a boogie line that “Your Powerful Wink Posture” drenches in spaced-out oscillations to set the scene for “The Leeds Esprit Of ‘Alabaster’ Eddy Holm” to present a silent-cinema experience and get “Respect The Sevenfold Wavenumber” to beam the same jolly sonics into extraterrestrial reaches again.
Yet while it’s impossible not to laugh at the vaudevillian march of “Bop For Beer With Token Precision” and jazzy edge of “Let Malraux Brandish His Pudding” before “A Snappish Concerto, Chuckwalla” pretends to offer a crazed, with drums and bells attached, nod to Mozart, and “A Round, Cast, Shining Thing” whips up a Morricone panorama, the exquisite “An Alien-filled, Cassius Tornado” wears a comedically long face, the majestic “The Gray Town Of The Fifteenth Dogfish” teeters on the verge on histrionic tragedy, and the brassy “Orchestral Spud Electron, Milord” peddles nostalgia. But whereas a toy-train chug behind “A Frankfurter Blush Continuo” is highly entertaining, and the explosive dynamics of “Coppery, Volleyball Combustion” marry 8-bit joie de vivre to Greek theater Judge explored on "Orfeas" at the start of the previous decade, “An Evensong Trilobite” turns out to be a wondrous serenade, and “The Texas Chrome Thieves” opts for a varispeed carousel swirl as a precursor to “Torpor Was On The Breeze” which finds the punters catch their breath.
And gasping is not optional here – for, without fresh air, the mandatory revisiting of this ballroom feels unimaginable.
*****
