I assume my finger must have been well and truly off the musical pulse by the end of the eighties, which - admittedly - I recall as being mostly about who was drawing the X-Men comics at the time. I wasn't actually aware of this ever having existed until about a year ago, and it's only during the last hour that I've discovered it wasn't even his first. Obviously I remember Zeke from Orange Juice, The The, and some sort of vague association with Foetus, and Mastercrime reveals him to be very much a musical force in his own right, or at least it did thirty years ago back when I was busily agonising over whether the refugee X-Men would ever return to their School for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester County.
First impression, which I suppose I may as well go with because why not, is that you can hear how he was such a good fit for The The, and particularly Soul Mining, although I may actually be hearing Manyika's aural footprint on Johnson's record, for what it's worth. The gospel element is more pronounced with an added afropop sensibility which reminds me of Young Fathers, most likely due to my extensive ignorance of the form, and it inhabits the same cinematic Savannah of the soul as The The - if you'll pardon the sheer ballsache of such a cliched description, which in all fairness you probably shouldn't. I knew what I was doing.
I have a vague idea that Some Bizarre had taken a lower profile by this point - unless it really was the case that I missed everything - but it seems a great shame that Mastercrime should seemingly represent some kind of half forgotten afterthought given that it's at least as good as any of the label's other top tier releases.
I probably need to track down a copy of that first album now.
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