Whenever things like the UK Independence Party make me feel that this country is turning in on itself and being drowned in breast-beating, xenophobic philistinism, I just have to remind myself that we (well, Scotland) are still producing people like Momus, and things don't seem so bad.
Of course no-one in this country much likes Momus. With his cosmopolitan name-dropping and the way he wears his Japanese and Gallic influences on his sleeve, he's bound to be seen as suspect.
I saw Momus doing a gig at the National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield. It was in the afternoon. No-one had promoted it at all, and there were just a few people in the bar, most of whom were just there for a coffee and were slightly irritated by this guy with an eye-patch muttering to himself and his backing tracks. It could be bitterness at this poor reception that led to Momus' acerbic comments about the National Centre, but I doubt it. The comments were largely deserved, independent of the reception.
At that point, all I knew of his music was one track on a Creation Records sampler, but the following year Momus's (when do you call him Momus, and when do you call him Nick Currie?) association with Stephin Merritt led me to take closer interest, and buy this album.
The songs are good, and the sleeve notes are better. It's no surprise that Momus is now more famous as a blogger than as a recording artist. A particular favourite is the note for Radiant Night, which reads, in part,
[quoting the song's lyrics] "I'm in love with Witold Gombrowicz, that sombre Polish man… I find Schoenberg's 'Verklarte Nacht' the loveliest thing I've heard…" The name-dropping is only redeemed by the divine comedy at the end of each verse: 'But when I've lost the taste for the highest and the best / I bounce on an enormous trampoline"
Now you can't tell me that the use of 'divine comedy' is anything but a dig at this Neil Hannon song. You see, Momus gets away with it where the Divine Comedy don't.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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