Album: (The Real) Tuesday Weld

Initially conceived as a soundtrack to Glen Duncan's novel of the same title - in which a jocular Satan justifies his attitudes towards God and mankind - I, Luciferis divided into three acts, with a small cast of characters delivering sharp lines such as: "Money's the revenge of the ugly on the beautiful" and "When Cupid meets Psyche, I get stupid, so don't like me." But it's the music that really grabs you, right from the chucklesome "Bathtime in Clerkenwell", a jaunty scat-sung nonsense groove. Thereafter, Coates employs guitar, keyboards, cello, vibes, brushed drums, quietly burbling synth tones and the occasional ghostly sample of muted trumpet or woodwind in languidly exotic lounge-music arrangements. There's a mutant Palm Court Orchestra texture to "Someday", "The Eternal Seduction of Eve" and "The Life and Times of the Clerkenwell Kid" - the latter a loping polka of Tom Waits-ian gait. But the best track is probably "(Still) Terminally Ambivalent Over You", which employs a delightfully s

Initially conceived as a soundtrack to Glen Duncan's novel of the same title - in which a jocular Satan justifies his attitudes towards God and mankind - I, Luciferis divided into three acts, with a small cast of characters delivering sharp lines such as: "Money's the revenge of the ugly on the beautiful" and "When Cupid meets Psyche, I get stupid, so don't like me." But it's the music that really grabs you, right from the chucklesome "Bathtime in Clerkenwell", a jaunty scat-sung nonsense groove. Thereafter, Coates employs guitar, keyboards, cello, vibes, brushed drums, quietly burbling synth tones and the occasional ghostly sample of muted trumpet or woodwind in languidly exotic lounge-music arrangements. There's a mutant Palm Court Orchestra texture to "Someday", "The Eternal Seduction of Eve" and "The Life and Times of the Clerkenwell Kid" - the latter a loping polka of Tom Waits-ian gait. But the best track is probably "(Still) Terminally Ambivalent Over You", which employs a delightfully springy country-blues guitar sample to drive a groove that sounds like JJ Cale sitting in with the Benny Goodman Sextet. Recommended.