“The panacea to all of your psycho-social ills”
Go out and buy ‘Assorted Nonsense’ by MLK, now, at his Bandcamp site, do yourself a favour. At this bewildering, and often depressing, point in human history, Steven Vickers has the panacea to all of your psycho-social ills. Irreverent, whimsical, infectiously catchy, mildly satirical, laugh out loud funny with Beastie Boys style cutting and pasting, and Voltaire-esque pathos, Midlife Krysis (AKA Steven Vickers AKA Victor Pope AKA Ian Nice, etc etc etc) hits a creative, and entertaining high with this newest release under his ironic ‘I’m rubbish at hip hop’ moniker.
There are moments of profound joy
Throughout the album there is such a mix of belligerently honed skill, and absurdity, on display that it’s what I imagine the author Thomas Pynchon would produce if he’d come from the North of England and had a bit of a penchant for hip hop. Over the course of the journey I suspect that there are more unique words than in the entire back catalogue of the famously proficient Aesop Rock. There are moments of profound joy, and a wee bit of awe, such as when Burt Bacharach is cut and pasted for 3 minutes over an homage to the oratorial & euligistic talents of Britains premier polo neck wearer, Giles Brandreth. On first listen, it’s an experience similar to the first time you heard ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’ by The Beastie Boys. This use of connotative samples with ‘National Treasure namedropping’ spat over the top is a distillation of nostalgia, humour, and social connection.
This social connection, and connection in general, are golden threads which run through all of the tracks, and his previous projects. Whether seeking love in all the wrong places (Peter the Dolphin), trying to repent for past sins but choosing the worst possible situation in which to do so, a la ‘Larry David’ (Cat in a Pram), or the beauty of childish love and play in an often seemingly inhospitable reality (Chicken Magician, Egyptian Space Zombies, Disco Vampires), every track feels like a layering of a hippy treatise being projected in Looney Tune vision.
Disco Vampires really makes you want to dance
The opening three tracks are as strong, and addictive, a set of album openers as you’ll find. A jab, jab, hook of gentle satire combined with sci fi reframing of anti-immigration rhetoric. On ‘Egyptian Space Zombies’ MLK’s vocal talents, and versatility, also let loose. On appt words and phrases, Vickers sounds like he’s almost drooling over the microphone. Lines like ‘eating brains’, are delivered with a delicious visceral vocal style. It’s funky as hell as well. In a similar fashion, Disco Vampires really makes you want to dance with the eponymous anti-heroes of the title. Referenced Youtube clips & memes portraying uprighted bats as goths at a club instantly loop your thoughts into the disco melody, and Bangles samples, bursting through at every break of vocal delivery.
‘Chicken Magician’ then, is an antidote to the energy of the other opening tracks, a childish xylophone and piano sample (I’m convinced actually sampled from a child’s performance) repeated under a very funny, very catchy, love song to the quotidian, to the playful, and to the simplicity of love itself. As with many of the tracks on the album you get the impression that with the catchiness, and humour, of so many of the songs hooks, Vickers is actively encouraging future audience participation during live sets. I defy anyone not to chant along with glee when MLK reveals the secret technique for cooking that perfect chicken.
LISTEN TO THE ALBUM
Because of the sensational levels of creativity on display, and as this feels like a ‘changing of the epoch’ album for MLK, inevitably tracks on the album which aren’t so bursting with novelty, will feel a little flatter. As with his other project, ‘Victor Pope’, Steve often focusses on the quotidian, those tiny unnoticed aspects of existence which, until we connect with them in some unforseen way, pass by without recognition (The Small Print). These subjects are wittily, and sometimes grippingly, covered in the tunes (The Face of Evil), but the very obscure nature of the topics make them less ripe for hooking into a surreal and beguiling narrative, such as on ‘Peter the Dolphin’, a stand out in terms of novelty, humour, and catchy pop culture referencing chorus. The closing track ‘Rufus Wainwright didn’t poo on my head’ wraps together all of the albums musings, wonderings and absurdities, and provides an emphatic alternative to drowning in a sea of social foibles, terrifying politics, and megalomaniac world leaders in a style suited to the pathos and themes of connection woven through the album.
Another Evolutionary Step
The album is I suppose then a great introduction to ‘The World of Steven Vickers’ for new listeners, and it takes forward all of the best aspects from all of his various projects so far. For anyone who’s heard his music before, it is another evolutionary step, it is a reafirming of the familiar with new levels of creativity to maximise his message that ‘Victor Pope is love’, but most of all it is a series of songs which will be chanted long and often on the streets of Edinburgh, anywhere he plays.
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