the bordellos

Latest from the Bordello basement, volume 17 of their ongoing ‘underground tapes’ series, this being the last of the year, though I wouldn’t hold your breath on that promise, there’s liable to be a nugget or two being shepherded out before the seasonal frivolities. Anyhow, as previously, four tracks unearthed from the vaults for your listening pleasure, this gathered selection strangely enough finding the Bordellos in a considerate n’ contemplative and dare I say, mellow mood. Working backwards through this archive selection, as you do, ‘heartache and alcohol’ is frailly framed in a souring last chance saloon wallow, the delicate scalp of disconsolate spidery riff loops prowl in the back ground with predatory instinct getting ever more impatient erupting momentarily in a Velveteen scowl before withdrawing to lick its wounds. With its needle crafted wheezing and playfully lolloping rustic courting, ‘baggypuss’ effects a strangely nostalgic glow that imagines – yes ‘Bagpuss’ having his afternoon snoozing idyll interrupted by a strangely funky and out of it sounding Mad Bob of the Cure, seriously, you’ve never heard the Bordellos sound so loose and chipper. ‘sunk and screwed’ on the other hand, finds the Bordellos on familiar footing cutting youthful (Mark E) Smith shapes replete with dishevelled n’ wiry riffs of the type that’d make even the Fire Engines and the Sinatras weep. Anyone remember Some Detergents, don’t ask me why, but ‘gloryhound’ has me with an unshakable desire to dig out their stuff or at least it would, if the rascals had paired up with a sunny sided mid 80’s Psychic TV, a deceptive softly pastoral slice of psych whimsy with woozy electronic waveforms, very XTC albeit as though viewed through the kaleidoscopic viewfinder of both Darren Hayman and Papernut Cambridge. Incidentally fact finders, the first ever track recorded by the band when they were still known as Onion Kings. https://bordellos.bandcamp.com/