Ivor Game is a singer/songwriter from London who decided to start releasing his own records in 1996.
Since then he has consistently produced one album every two years.
'Wake Up An Sing' is number seven and, all thing being equal, we can expect to hear the next in the series in 2010.
The watchwords for Ivor are brevity and simplicity.
This is just the sound of one man and his acoustic guitar, no overdubs and no frills.
The album has 10 tracks with a total playing time of 17minutes 6 seconds.
No track is less than one minute long but none exceeds 2 minutes - the track 'Insane' is positively expansive at I minute 59 seconds.
His are miniature vignettes where there are (unnamed) love interests but where his chief concerns are me, myself and I.
He reflects on a voice inside which is "seldom heard" ('Me') or ,on 'Who I Am', he muses on a letter that makes him think he may not be who he thought he was - "I thought I was this but I was little more than that" ('Who I am').
|
Ivor Game is like an English suburban version of Jandek, less scary or weird but with the same recurring preoccupations of one man alone in a room.
On 'Insane' he wonders if he's going mad ("It's in my makeup") but, on a more reassuring note, says he wants to "sift out the evil and the dark" ('The Love Love Song').
'I Like Being At Home' provides the definitive statement, Here he informs whoever cares to listen that he likes being completely alone, watching TV, making tea and likes "to wake up and sing and then start pottering (though I hate ironing)".
In the world according to Ivor Game what lies outside his home barely intrudes.
He'is just a simple man with some charmingly simple yet honest songs.
The sum total is worth 15 minutes of anybody's time
|
