Anzahlung - I've Lost My Footing On the World (2020)

 

As a medium to severe Cravats devotee for at least four decades now, I've spent quite a lot of that time tantalised by the prospect of the Shend's solo material, which has been unfortunately sporadic; and unfortunately because what little there is to be had seems to afford glimpses of something genuinely magnificent. I'm referring here to a couple of tracks which appeared on obscure compilations, Piston Smash & the Morning Dobermen who were listed as one of those DCL groups in a fanzine back in the eighties - and I knew someone who apparently had a tape of the same but can't even remember who it was - and, of course, the Singing Man.

Anzahlung additionally features Joe 91 of the Cravats - here in his postmortem incarnation as Dead Joe - and thus hardly qualifies as Shend solo material, yet of all which has sprung forth from the Cravats over the years, it seems thematically and sonically closest to Pixie Denial and what other Shendish fragments I've encountered, and is therefore fab.

There have been rumours of I've Lost My Footing On the World being some sort of pandemic lockdown album which, if true, at least proves that it's an ill wind which blows no good. It's sort of minimal and home-produced, but is of such composition as to dispel thoughts that it might have been casually squeezed out for the sake of killing time. Initial impressions suggest Suicide had they been an outgrowth of the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band, maybe a faint suggestion of the Sleaford Mods at least informing the possibility of an album recorded by means of little black boxes, but as it builds emotional presence with each consecutive spin of the vinyl which you probably should have bought a couple of months back, it goes through a sort of biker version of Severed Heads phase before blooming into its own absolutely weird and entirely stunning thing.

The best tracks might be Standing Still and Busy Always Ends in Why? but it's a close run race. Let's hope that either there's more where this came from or that the pandemic lasts long enough to oblige a follow up.