If Joanna Newsom had been a New Romantic she might have sounded a bit like electro-pop duo Becky Becky. There's a similar, prepubescent petulance to the distinctive voice of Gemma Williams who was last heard on her excellent solo releases as Woodpecker Wooliams.
Here we find her teaming up with former Fence Collective member Peter JD Mason and dispensing with 'real' instruments - no harps, drums or guitars; just one trusty synthesizer.
Williams may at times sound like a spoilt adolescent but there's nothing juvenile or superficial about the lyrics. The poetic yet at times disturbing content is inspired by the work of Jean Rhys. The album is named after Rhys' novel from 1930, the author in turn got the title from an Emily Dickenson poem.
That a writer who specialised in what one her editors described as "the purging of unhappiness" should inspire boppy dance music is a little incongruous to say the least. Against all the odds, it works.
Perhaps Gemma Williams' found in Rhys' words a similarly therapeutic quality through the honest manner in which she documents the lives of mistreated and vulnerable women.
Quite Like Old Times uses lines directly from the novel including the feeling of being "as sad as a circus lioness. As an eagle without wings. A violin with one string". Fire & Wings takes its title from another quote “I want more of this feeling - fire and wings”.
The songs may sound bright and bubbly but closer inspection reveals that sadness, self doubt and pain are constant elements. Sophia tells of a desperate act of suicide while in Darkness an exploitative male is confronted: "You have the right to own my body but not to laugh at me".
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Perhaps darkest of all is Tigers Are Better Looking. This takes its title from a short story collection by Rhys and the deep sense of rage and menace is exemplified in the line: “One day I shall take a hammer from the folds of my dark cloak and I will crack her little skull like an eggshell spilling out yolk".
Musically, the tunes follow a more formulaic model. Mask is one of many that seem like re-workings of 80s hits such as Visage’s Fade To Grey. A more recent point of reference might be The Knife's Shaking The Habitual.
The UK duo are based in Brighton but do not belong to any local scene. They see themselves more as continental citizens. This explains why the album was recorded in a wooden chalet in a French Alpine village and written in various cities including Stockholm, Berlin and Prague. The latter location also accounts for the naming one track House Of The Black Madonna, after the well-known Cubist building in the Czech capital.
'Good Morning, Midnight' is a wildly eccentric album but by no means as disposable as it first appears.
Better to think of it as Euro-trash for bookworms.
Becky Becky on Soundcloud
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