Artist: Paul Hawkins & Thee Awkward Silences
Title: Apologies To The Enlightenment
Label: Jezus Factory
Genre: Alternative
Bitrate: 180kbit av.
Time: 01:14:40
Size: 100.81 mb
Rip Date: 2010-03-04
Str Date: 2010-04-19
01. The Beasts In The Upstairs Bedroom 7:10
02. The Day The Music Stopped 4:19
03. I'm In Love With A Hospital Receptionist 5:10
04. Monkey Serum 5:05
05. Stop Making A Scene 2:59
06. Seven Inches Tall 3:14
07. I've Had My Fun 7:18
08. The Yellow Castle On The Hill 8:24
09. Every Word I Say To You Today Will Be A Lie 3:43
10. You're Never Gonna Leave Behind The Freakshow 5:26
11. Alexander Martin 5:13
12. Eddie The Eagle 5:54
13. The Lowest Low 4:59
14. The Epilogue 5:46
Release Notes:
Paul Hawkins & Thee Awkward Silences release their new double CD album
'Apologies to the EnlightenmentÆ on the 19 April 2010 through Jezus
Factory Records. The first single will be 'Every Word I Say to You
Today Will Be A LieÆ released a week earlier Monday the 12th of April.
Paul Hawkins & Thee Awkward Silences began in 2006 as a collaboration
between antifolk songwriter Hawkins & former Death in Vegas guitarist
turned producer & drummer Ian Button in order to develop HawkinsÆ then
mostly-acoustic songs into the compelling, twisted outsider pop that
existed in HawkinsÆ imagination. Over the next few years they evolved
into a six-piece & gained a fearsome live reputation as one of the most
original & uncompromising live acts in London supporting the likes of
Blood Red Shoes & Wreckless Eric & gaining slots at the Latitude & Swn
festivals. Debut single 'The Bigger Bone' was the UK Student Radio
AssociationÆs track of the week & was followed by a glut of critically
acclaimed singles & their 2008 album 'We Are Not Other People', which
was crammed with wickedly twisted pop songs contrasted HawkinsÆ
distinctive snarl & bleakly humorous lyrics with insanely catchy
singalong tunes. The band have been championed by the likes of Radio
1Æs Huw Stephens who rejoiced in their 'energy, individualism &
off-kilter rock nÆ roll' & have drawn comparisons with outsider punk
champion Ian Dury, the melodrama of Nick Cave & the uncompromising
post-punk of The Fall, PiL & The Pogues but have a take that is
uniquely their own.
With their sprawling new double disc, 'Apologies to the Enlightenment'
Paul Hawkins & Thee Awkward Silences have produced at once their most
challenging & their most accessible work to date. Opener 'The Beasts in
the Upstairs Bedroom' buzzes with menace & delves into the heart of a
Suburban subconscious nightmare, 'IÆm In Love With a Hospital
Receptionist' scrapes the romantic fantasies of a hapless hypochondriac
against an almost jaunty rhythm section, the Cramps-esque 'Monkey
Serum' bounces on a wonky harpsichord & communal shoutalong chorus &
the fuzz-pop of 'Stop Making a Scene' sees Hawkins turn his frustration
with the modern world on friends, inanimate objects & all else in his
path. The first disc ends with two significant shifts in mood û on
'Seven Inches Tall' a lonely piano motif accompanies a haunted Hawkins
watching his self-esteem crumble before Krautrock-inspired behemoth (&
recent single) 'IÆve Had My Fun' relentlessly sears into your skill as
Hawkins rages at dead end jobs, dead end societies & dead end
governments over a constant cycle of despair until the whole edifice
destroys itself in its crushing outro ('The Party is over & IÆm on the
scrapheap/IÆve been forgotten & its been too longÆ)
The second disc opens with perhaps the bleakest & most startling work
on the album 'The Yellow Castle on the Hill' charts the despair of an
institutionalised mental patient, whose remorse over the life he has
missed is matched only by his fears & doubts regarding his forthcoming
release. ItÆs poignant, touching & quite unlike anything else on this
(or virtually any other) album. New single 'Every Word I Say To You
Today Will Be A Lie' swaggers wonderfully down the street on a bed of
clomping basslines, strings & guitar screeches reminiscent of the best
moments of Ian Dury & The Blockheads underpinning a lovesick HawkinsÆ
feverish escapist fantasies. Elsewhere underdogs like 'Alexander
Martin' & 'Eddie The Eagle' are inhabited & used as personifications of
HawkinsÆ constantly questioning existential angst. 'The Lowest Low'
sees HawkinsÆ powerful stream of consciousness augmented expertly by
Kate ArnoldÆs cutting vocal counterpoint. The album finishes strongly
with 'IÆve Had My Fun' flipside 'The Epilogue', which sounds something
like the grand finale of High School MusicalÆs deeply fucked-up older
brother.
Hawkins said 'itÆs an album about frustration, confusion & loss of
direction. About realising your qualifications are meaningless, youÆre
doing a job you hate, youÆre no closer to any kind of meaningful
long-term relationship, youÆve no idea where your lifeÆs going & you
live in a society guided by a large-number of irrational & illogical
systems that you know full well make absolutely no sense but
nonetheless have to abide by if youÆre going to in any way exist as a
functional human being. And itÆs about trying to dive into that
irrationality & emerge with enough misplaced hope & misguided optimism
to get you through.'
Paul Hawkins & The Awkward Silences are perhaps the most idiosyncratic
pop band in Britain & their latest work demands attention from the
outsider in us all.
http://www.myspace.com/theeawkwardsilence
sire@hush.ai