Melody Maker
1995
Robyn Hitchcock
Black Snake Diamond Role 15tks/59 mins
Gravy Deco 23 tks/78 mins
I Often Dream Of Trains 24 tks/69 mins
Fegmania! 19 tks/75 mins
Gotta Let This Hen Out! 14 tks/51 mins
Element Of Light 20 tks/72 mins
Invisible Hitchcock 20 tks/70 mins
Eye 21 tks/77 mins
You & Oblivion 22 tks/71 mins
All Sequel RSACD 819-827/MP/CD only
by David Bennun
He always makes me think of student days spent in other people's dank, poster-bedecked rooms, soaking up elephant tranquiliser -- and whatever music came my way. Among innumerable other delights, I was exposed to The Soft Boys' wonderful swan song, Underwater Moonlight (see MM's "Unknown Pleasures" for further details). Then, as now, Black Snake Diamond Role, Robyn Hitchcock's post-Soft Boys debut, struck me as the continuing perfection of his raw whimsy: thoroughly Home Counties, Syd Barrett-inspired songs sporting reptile heads and porcupine quills. Black Snake is crisp with the charred ferocity that erratically rubs off on Hitchcock's finest work, and deserves a shrine within the tiny pantheon of excellent post-'60s Acid Rock.
Gravy Deco -- two sets of takes of the same songs, three years apart -- and I Often Dream Of Trains contain sparks of brilliance, but are way too whimsical and pastiche-ridden for my taste. Turn instead to 1985's Gotta Let This Hen Out!, a live story-so-far kind of thing, for "The Cars She Used To Drive" and "Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl", along with many more of Hitchcock's best tracks, performed with a muscularity that would have hugely benefited some of the studio versions.
Fegmania! was Hitchcock's first record with The Egyptians and ranks with Globe Of Frogs (A&M) as the best. It's good to hear deserved cult classics, "My Wife And My Dead Wife", "Goodnight I Say", and "Heaven". It's not so good to hear the quirky and ofttimes twee doodling that make up much of Hitchcock's ouevre -- including a fair bit of the occasionally cracking rarities collection, Invisible Hitchcock. Still, these are preferable to the stuff that made him an "Alternative" star in The States under the patronage of Peter Buck (who was only, to be fair, returning a favour). There's nothing wrong with Element Of Light, Eye, and a compilation of unissued, Bucked-up material titled You And Oblivion -- if, that is, you like the solemnly mature College Rock/acoustic idiom to which Hitchcock marries his non-sequiturs. I'd rather be eaten by my own dinner.
To understand what the Americans see in Hitchcock, check out the far superior release, Perspex Island (Go! Discs), which should be heard by R.E.M. fans everywhere (as should Moonlight and Black Snake).
Hitchcock is so prolific that perhaps it's inevitable he should have a low strike rate -- now further diminished by "bonus tracks" that were best left unavailable. But he deserves better than to be seen as a minor oddity or a musical Vic Reeves. There's plenty to treasure here, even if you have to go panhandling to find it.
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