Ronnie McPherson’s sharp mutant take on techno
first came to light on Glasgow’s Stuff Records.
Two tracks on this album - Jumpers and North
Star - featured on 2004’s Izu vs The
Andies EP. More recently McPherson’s material
– again under the Izu moniker - surfaced on last
year’s Marcia Blaine School For Girls excellent
compilation of Scottish electronica Some Paths Lead
Back Again.
On this, his debut album, McPherson is at his best when
he manipulates vocals, nowhere more so than on the rave
tinged Polish Trouble which features a manic,
child-like vocal skulking deep within a crashing industrial
melody. Throughout, a dark brooding theme builds to
a centre stage that is never quite illuminated. Instead
a sense of menace looms, ever-present but hidden in
the shadows. As if to prove that he can do introspective
however, Polish Trouble gives way to Jumpers,
perhaps the album’s most fragile moment. McPherson
explains that the track takes its name from a suicide
cult in Paul Auster’s In The Country Of Last
Things. The novel describes the odyssey of Anna
Blume, struggling to find her brother in a post-apocalyptic
vision of New York. The burnt-out city is a hopeless
place where commercial manufacture and human reproduction
have ended. All that is left is a grim arena where matter
- whether it be human waste or corpses - is collected
by scavengers and transformed into useful merchandise.
A post-apocalyptic thread runs throughout the album.
The title of the album itself Going Salamander
is a reference to a sequence in Alasdair Gray’s
Lanark where people turn into lizards then
explode, helping to provide power for a post-apocalyptic
Glasgow.
Glasgow may be McPherson’s adopted home but it
is worth noting that he is originally from South Uist,
a Hebridean island that is low on population but high
on peat. South Uist is a galaxy away from downtown Detroit
which makes one of the album’s other stand out
tracks, Get UR Fleece On, all the more interesting.
With its acidic touches skulking under a harsh brutalist
husk, this is a glorious attempt to link the outdoor
clothing so fashionable in the Highlands with the siege
mentality soundscapes created by Mike Banks’ Underground
Resistance.
As if this wasn’t enough, there’s also some
tidy bonus material available on the Highpoint Lowlife
site. The highlight of the digital single available
for free download is The Village
Orchestra’s mix of Jumpers, a much
more jolly affair with some trademark touches and complete
with Girls Aloud samples.
Stuart Aitken
4/5 |
