There’s an idea for you. Chop up your next album project into bite sized pieces for your adoring public and, as a side effect, you’ll also be able to save the environment by using less vinyl. Cynicism and green concerns aside, you’ve got to wonder what a grande dame of Scottish independent music like Aidan Moffat is up to here. As is his wont, his brief words here sting like salt rubbed into the wounds left by love and life. Blink, however, and you might miss that.
With vastly variable sound quality, these lo-fi tales of Angostura bitterness are simultaneously pithy and meandering like tone poems translated and brutally edited for the modern age with only “Buckfast Beauty” actually showing any significant element of sentiment. Having said that, this - no doubt cathartic - self loathing is still vastly preferable to the angst ridden self pity so beloved of the sensitive singer songwriters that pollute this part of the world.
Aidan Moffat certainly isn’t the first artist to hold a knife at his own throat but given the level of intelligence evident from his lyrics, you have to wonder why he hasn’t noticed the prevalent aspect of our shorthand lives. After a very short while, will anyone actually care if he does the self destruct thing? That neatly takes me to my point – how good would these ten songs have been if Aidan Moffat actually cared about what he was doing?
A bonus carrot was awarded for putting tits on the cover.