Matt discovers a good review of our first album, from <a href="http://www.musikexpress.de/">"musikexpress"</a>, which apparently is the biggest German music paper. It also acts as quite a good "Dickon Primer", for those of you stumbling upon this diary, and indeed me, for the first time. I'm clearly having a self-aggrandising day.
Kate D translated it. Her notes are at the bottom.
——
<i>FOSCA
"On Earth To Make The Numbers Up"
(Shinkansen)
Cool, elegant British electropop between Pulp and Pet Shop Boys – without spectacular gestures and compulsive rhythms, but so charming and intelligent that it's irresistable regardless. Dickon Edwards is an incurable romantic. He lost his heart sometime in the early 80s and since then has sought the future in the past, knows himself to be forever misunderstood and apart from the teeming everyday run of things – "I nearly had a T-shirt made saying: Lose Friends in Days – Ask Me How", he sings in "Storytelling Johnny". Dickon is also a great dreamer, who has never relinquished the hope deep inside of one day living in a world full of intelligent, tasteful beings who mix volubly and insightfully with one another – one of his most melancholic songs is called "Live Deliberately", including the immortal line: "I found the truth, and it was of no use."
Dickon hit the big time</i><b>[*]</b> <i>a couple of years ago. Then the revival of the cool Britain of the 80s under the slogan "Romo" ("Romantic Modernists") was going like a cold wildfire through London, and Dickon's band Orlando belonged to the innermost circle and the most joyful phenomena. Their album "Passive Soul" was numbered by the critics of the Melody Maker as amongst the best of 1997, and the singer, lyricist and co-songwriter kept a safe foot on the parquet of vanity. His meticulous appearance filled the gossip columns, he wrote much-observed essays on the Style Council and Manic Street Preachers, appeared as an eccentric fashion model – and disappeared overnight into thin air after the Romo fashion disintegrated like an Autumn lichen.</i><b>[**]</b> <i> From 1998 he appeared under the name Fosca – more a project than a band, with changing lineups, sole live shows, a pretty self-produced single ("Nervous", 1999) – and wrote an internet diary enjoyed with great, silent admiration by insiders.
Without haste Fosca took shape step by step – Rachel Stevenson came as (also singing) keyboardist, cellist Sheila B and multi-instrumentalist Alex Sharkey completed the line-up. After a highly regarded debut outing supporting the spiritually incestuous</i><b>[***]</b> <i>Trembling Blue Stars at London's Spitz club, in April 2000 the band worked with St. Etienne and Kylie Minogue producer Ian Catt to record eight songs that for me beyond doubt number amongst the most beautiful and intelligent of this year – from the fragile joy of the dance-hymn "The Agony Without The Ecstasy" to the intimate, tearless September-Sunday-melancholy of "Assume Nothing", from the 80s disco masked ball sounds of "It's Going To End In Tears (All I Know)" to the hymnal warmth of "On Earth To Make The Numbers Up" – a potential hit, a favourite song like the others, with lyrics that Jarvis Cocker would be very proud of. "I dreamt the film of my life as directed by Joseph Losey / It was eight minutes long, and cast as me was Parker Posey / It had a limited run in the small hours on Channel Four / And all of my scenes ended up on the cutting room floor." – that's just the beginning of "The Millionaire of Your Own Hair".
There aren't many bands whom I can love without reserve and in every detail – here is one of them.
5 and a half stars.
Michael Sailer</i>
I don't know out of how many stars that is, though.
Kate's translation notes:
<b>[*]</b> <i>"hatte eine grosse Zeit" = "had a big time". you go figure</i>
<b>[**]</b><i> it's actually Autumn mushroom but I think something gets lost in the translation!</i>
<b>[***]</b> <i>yes, definitely something getting lost in the translation.</i>
Actually, I think it <i>gains</i> something in the translation.
