Animals That Swim – How to make a chandelier (from the album Workshy, One Little Indian)
A bracing cut from the heady days of 1994, now remastered and reissued and sounding arguably miles more relevant than in those pre-Blair days. There’s a certain post punk feel, some kind of bearing, authority, swagger. Not just in Hank Starrs’ deadpan but somehow not lacking pathos semi-spoken vocal (something in it would remind you of Stewart Lee somehow). But in the genius guitar riffs, two of them, non-identical twins - the first a seemingly friendly Britpop wolf in sheep’s clothing, the second consisting of mostly the same notes but with a bend and a twist and a smear of rock n roll danger about it. In the space of only two minutes, there’s also room for a pummelling breakdown and a blaring trumpet crescendo. And all the way through the existential lyric, the epitome of lying in the gutter but looking at the stars - trying to make a chandelier from the glass of car windows broken by his own hand but only succeeding in cutting himself. Thrilling rock n roll but more tha...