Bernadette Cremin & Paul Mex - Mutual Territory (2018)

Poetry still makes me anxious godammit, but I'm trying, and I'm not actually having to try too hard with this one because it's excellent. As before, Mex effortlessly soundtracks Bernadette Cremin's words with jazzy, bluesy touches which hint at familiar forms without simply duplicating or impersonating, and the whole reminds me, of all things, of Clock DVA's Advantage album - hard stories told with a collar turned up against bitter winds howling down rain soaked streets, but with a whole lot of soul.

What differentiates Mutual Territory from what I may appear to have described, or tried to describe, is that whilst the music and images form a near seamless, moody whole, a perfect synthesis of atmosphere and narrative, I suspect the parts would work as well alone - as witnessed by the closing instrumental - because Cremin's testimony is shocking, chilling and yet powerfully familiar, and her words - softly spoken and measured - are delivered with the sort of gravity that silences a room. Cremin captures and dissects tiny instances of daily life, the prosaic and the painful, working at each one until it's as sharp as the point upon which someone's entire existence might change, hopefully for the better but there's a lot of room for ambiguity. It can be tough to listen to in the same way that Gary Oldman's Nil by Mouth is tough to watch, albeit possibly not quite so dark or relentless, but similarly it draws you in.

Mutual Territory has some of the intensity usually credited to records by Nick Cave - which I can never quite see, personally speaking. It hurts a bit but is not without redemptive qualities, and musically, it could be one of the best things Mex has ever had a hand in. My only complaint is that the musical setting of Hipsway Cabaret emulates that Venga Boys Eurothrob a bit too faithfully for comfort, although maybe that's the point given that this is hardly cosy listening.

Get it here.

Bernadette Cremin & Paul Mex - Guilty Fist (2015)

Just to get the customary objections out in the open, whilst it isn't strictly true that I hate poetry, I probably hate enough of it to render the assertion more or less accurate; although, to break it down a little further, the specific sort of thing which brings me out in hives is poetry which knows that it is poetry and which introduces itself as such with either a wry Stilgoe-esque smirk or the sort of studied glacial nonchalance that can only be perfected by many hours spent gazing either into a mirror or up its own bumhole. It's the teenager who has somehow managed to have seen it all before and who understands just how shocking his words must seem to the audience at the - ugh - poetry slam, enunciating cock like the word might be new to us. It's my former housemate Steve poeting about how fucking her is like escaping from a drowning helicopter, when we all know he never even got close, and that the unlucky lady in question had more sense than to let that passive-aggressive little misanthrope anywhere near her ha'penny.

On the other hand, I very much like Charles Bukowski, Billy Childish, Bill Lewis and others whose work I tend to think of just as writing, because that's what it is. So my criteria seems to rest upon how much the work is involved in the mythology of its own self-importance. In other words I like writing which just gets on with the communication without having to tell us what form it's going to take; and getting at last to the point, the writing of Bernadette Cremin, whoever she may be, very much belongs in this second category.

On the face of it, Guilty Fist is someone reading poetry to the accompaniment of suitably atmospheric music, except it's nothing so mannered as the description might suggest. Bernadette Cremin speaks her own words with the sort of gravity which demands you stop whatever you're doing and pay attention, and her testimony is spot on - clear and straight to the heart of the matter with chilling precision, neither showboating anything too ostentatiously shocking nor necessarily reducing everything to its lowest common denominator. She gets the balance exactly right, perfectly blending the narrative with the mood of the music, dispelling the suggestion of either being mere accompaniment; and this syncretism is further achieved when she slips into song and turns out to have a pretty decent bluesy voice.

Her subject matter seems to be highly personal and quite intense, so listening is a profoundly psychological experience. The music, mostly arranged by Mex, takes a downtempo direction with bluesy, jazzy, even occasionally pseudo-classical inflections. I'd say it reminds me a little of Portishead, except I never really liked them that much, and this is better. At times I'm reminded of In the Nursery when they were slapping marble columns on the covers of their records and pretending to be French, or maybe even Cranes, if anyone remembers them. Certainly there's a gothic element, gothic as in reading Mary Shelley with a glass of whine rather than dressing up like Nosferatu. Anyway, whatever it is, it's very powerful.

Treat yo'self!