Duke Special - Look Out Machines
This is altogether more personal, dreamlike and surprising.
I made a very different pledge today to Duke Special than the one I did when I first fell for his inimitable style in 2004. Back then, it was to buy his fledgling EP as he was hawking his wares after an Aqualung support slot. I was pledging to support his nascent career, but today, my support was made through Pledge Music to support his eighth full-length album. The lead single of Look Out Machines!, Nail on the Head startled me when I first heard it. Duke, who so often sounds like he’s just tumbled from the back of a recently unlocked vaudeville prop cupboard, has employed a more electric element to the track. Even against his character-rich, ‘real’ voice, it works - in the same ways as, for example, John Grant’s Pale Green Ghosts seems at once ultra modern, yet rooted in traditional storytelling. Look Out Machines!’ could be a reference to Peter ‘Duke’ Wilson’s introduction of electronic instruments. He’s never been one to wheel on stage anything that’s needed a plug, so this adds a new dimension to his work. It’s a stark contrast from his previous starkly Brechtian storytelling – not least on his own rendition of the music from Mother Courage; this is altogether more personal, dreamlike and surprising. Duke Special has orchestrated his own musical, this time. This could be Bat for Lashes for all its light fantasy – except what remains - what will always be, is the honesty, the emotion - that voice - of Duke Special. And for that, I’ll pledge indefinitely.
7/10
