Simon Fisher Turner seems like a fascinating individual. He has been an actor on several BBC series; recorded music under his own name (both with and without his middle name) and as The King of Luxembourg and Deux Filles; and been a member of both the Portsmouth Sinfonia Orchestra and The The. Currently he makes music for - as Wikipedia puts it - "commercials for water, supermarkets and cancer research." While King of Luxembourg appears to have been steeped in the sounds of sixties pop (or, as one DJ puts it, "ultra wimpy pop,"), his Soundescapes collaboration with Espen J Jörgensen, released by Mute Records in 2011, is an album of deeply experimental and strange electronic music. Obviously the man contains multitudes.
I don't know if the KCMU gang were aware of any of this back story when Sir, the first King of Luxembourg album, came into the station, but it appears that, for the most part, they appreciated it on its own merits.
"Let the tale begin... An epic LP - hmmm."
"'Knave' would have been a better title for this album."
"He certainly is the crown prince of ultra wimpy pop. Not for all tastes, but I like."
"Kinda groovy - #5.5 is a Beefheart cover."
"They do a great cover of the Monkees' 'Valleri' on the London Pavillion compilation. This is OK save for the dippy cover art & concept."
"Long live b.d."
"Gee Phil, I always thought you suffered from dippy cover art and a completely ass wipeish concept."
Jimmy Cliff might be the most prolific artist I've covered in this blog (OK, probably not more prolific than Jandek, but he's superhuman). Last year, forty-five years after his debut, he released the Tim Armstrong-produced Rebirth, which shocked the world by being both a brilliant artistic achievem…
If you're like me, odds are you hear the name Lene Lovich (or, as I recently did, find a copy of this very album in the bins at Goodwill) and instantly hear her distinctively playful yet unabashedly Teutonic voice squeaking out the hook to her best-known song, "Lucky Number." Like so many brilliant…
