neo-glam 1 of ?

 

I was quite taken by No-Man - an approving nod in their direction, from a June 1993 singles column

Now funnily enough 4 years earlier, back in 1989, in another singles column,  I had made a call for  - or at least toyed with the notion of - a rediscovery of art-rock art-I-fice, a renaissance of the valorously pretentious and effete:

"Crap has not yet turned to gold; you'll have to wait for us to write all this up for you, Gavin, old man"

- hark at the self-conscious awareness of  the role of discourse in framing music, the sense that a transvaluation would need to be staged and set in motion, for us to hear all these vocal / lyrical / sonic / sartorial mannerisms as "cool" and even "enjoyable" again. And that transvaluation would be the shared work of critics and musicians (with the writers taking the lead)  

Supremely arrogant, this envisioning critics as unacknowledged legislators of Music, whose diktats would change taste in receptive minds. The power of rhetorical alchemy: the formerly "crap" transubstantiated into the new "gold".

What's funny is that first list of band names (from Bebop to Doctors of Madness via Van Der Graaf, Deaf School and SAHB) are groups I would not even have heard at that point. I knew the names and had a vague sense of reputations - what they stood for. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Going back to No-Man -  I never made the connection that half the core group is Steve Wilson as in Porcupine Tree and "remixer of renown" . So there's prog as well as glam in their art-pop, and it's very cleanly produced indeed.  

Liner note to Loveblows & Lovecries, penned by "Billy Baudelaire" (actually singer Tim Bowness) 

“Lovecry

The first thing you notice is the terrible beauty of it all.

The terrible rightness. The appetite.

Here at last is a group that appreciates extremes of

experience and expression. A group that prays to the hips

and lips of Presley’s rock’n’roll escapism as often as it

bathes in the poetry of Sartre’s poisoned Paris. A group

that likes to hurl its body at passing trains, stick its head

in fluffy clouds and roll naked in the dirt – all in the

same lunch break.

As taken by Manson’s whiskers as Bolan’s curls, No Man

is another crueller pop dream for another crueller

generation, charging through the idiot wind of 90’s new

age indolence, striking a balance between wisdom and folly, fact and

fancy, truth and its consequences.

No Man is a simple as a child’s fable and as complex as life itself.

A tetchy bastard with a healthy appetite and a nice line in

kitchen utensils, No Man likes good food.

Loveblows and Lovecries, a taste of heaven.

Eat Well!“

Via this site dedicated to the group (who are still an on-going project)