Mutant Vinyl - Daffodils in Angell Town

  by John Clarkson

published: 13 / 6 / 2019

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Review

‘Daffodils in Angell Town’ takes its title from a small plot of land on the tough South London housing estate of Angell Town where children paint flowers on its walls and ground in memory of those killed in local gang wars. Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts graduate Edwin Pope, who writes and performs music under the moniker of Mutant Vinyl, used to pass it every day on the bus, and ‘Daffodils in Angell Town’, his debut album, which is a haunting, emotive hybrid of electronica, jazz, dub and reggae, captures all the turbulence and confusion of the present times exactly. Pope composed the majority of it on his MacBook, before adding vocals and his trademark saxophone in a small studio in Dorset, creating an exciting album which combines computer music with live instrumentation. While Pope continues to be based now in London, he maintains strong links with Liverpool, and ‘Daffodils in Angell Town’ has been released on LP and download by the ever reliable Merseyside label Klee Music. The stand-out track is ‘8th and H’, an echoing blast of electro reggae funk that is gloriously reminiscent of Steel Pulse, and is a blistering attack on austerity and lives summed up by spreadsheet. Loop-driven recent single ‘Poh Poh’ pushes Pope’s squalling saxophone to the fore, and, reflecting on on-line dating and Tinder culture, examines the pressure on many single people to find the perfect partner even before they have had a face-to-face meeting. The discordant ‘Jungle Lick in Soho’ takes this theme further, telling with a sense of dark comedy of one such date going disastrously wrong. The album is closed with the dub-heavy ‘Mutha Sista’, about the need of us all to maintain some kind of roots, and the wistful for another time ‘Tear Down the Bunting’, which reflects with a bittersweet melancholy on the long-term effects that Brexit will have over generations for years to come. ‘Daffodils in Angell Town’ is highly rewarding. Combining a sense of hurt and anger with an underlying optimism that we all deserve better than this, it is a profound and atmospheric depiction of the times that we live in.

Track Listing:-

1 Ghosts of Dorset
2 Poh Poh
3 (Saturday Yeah Yawn)
4 8th & H
5 Pika
6 (Karneval)
7 Kick Out, Kid!
8 Jungle Lick in Soho
9 (Skye)
10 Puffin Song
11 Heads, Dreads (feat. Amorie)
12 (Dave Wells Dub)
13 Purple Columns
14 Mutha Sista
15 Tear Down the Bunting