By Ed Dyer
This debut solo release from Little Red’s Ian Mitchell is not what you expect musically. However, it does confirm where the darkness in the song writing of his main band originates from, for this is a very dark and nasty little record indeed – the self-claimed influence of Nick Cave and Tom Waits is indeed writ large all over it. As well as being loaded with shadowy lyrics and themes, there is a serious schizophrenia going on, as the music careers wildly between musical and vocal styles, from soft ballads to raging rants, electro pop to irish jigs. If you listen closely, you can even hear the kitchen sink. However, there is a twisted coherency to it all, an ongoing thread of fucked up-ness for want of a better phrase, that gives it an almost coherent narrative, albeit one dredged up from the bottom of a particularly murky lake of liquid LSD. It is a narrative that deals explicitly with alcoholism, substance abuse, sex, debt, death and mental illness by framing it with some deliciously lo-fi, eclectic, erratic noise in a serious assault on your soul. As Ian himself has stated, this was written and recorded “to challenge the listener from the ground up. No brief. No limits. No restrictions. No apologies.” It is not for the faint of heart, that is for sure.