David Lance Callahan - English Primitive II

by Kimberly Bright

published: 20 / 3 / 2023

David Lance Callahan - English Primitive II

Label: Tiny Global Productions
Format: CD

David Lance Callahan’s ‘English Primitive II’ is more a darker companion piece than a follow-up to its predecessor

Review

If it’s possible to match last year’s stellar ‘English Primitive I’, David Lance Callahan has managed to not only do that but possibly surpass it in some ways, in all its “mutant Eastern, West African, folk, blues and post-punk influences.” As the companion piece to ‘English Primitive I’, with material from the same recording sessions, this album is harder with threads of folk and psychedelia and far more unsettling subjects. As a further point of continuity, the album cover artwork was once again created by Pinkie McClure, while David Janes also illustrated each individual song as stained glass visual allegories for the lovely accompanying CD booklet. ‘Invisible Man’ is a portrait of the burning, vengeful rage of the ordinary man, against a setting of almost dreamy ‘60s pop-psych, describing the sort of constant state of anger that A.A. Gill described in ‘The Angry Island: Hunting The English’ and Michael Douglas portrayed in Joel Schumacher’s 1993 film ‘Falling Dow’n. Not to mention the quiet type we read about on a daily basis in news reports who erupts into random murderous violence in a public place, workplace, or school. The left of centre Callahan made no secret of his values on ‘Born Of The Welfare State Was I’ on ‘English Primitive I’. Here ‘Beautiful Laundrette’, with a nod to Hanif Kureishi’s ‘My Beautiful Laundrett’, is about corruption in government, taking as a metaphor the very real money laundering that takes place in the UK by international gangsters and oligarchs, while leaders, real estate developers, and quasi-philanthropists pretend not to notice. Politicians and complicit unelected government cogs are also skewered in the driving ‘The Parrot’ (“Climbs up a ladder, a quill in its beak/Pre-prepared content, all ready to speak”), ‘The Scapegoat’ and ‘Orgy Of The Ancients’, with a play on “ancients” as being either old man or decadent end-of-empire Roman leaders. ‘The Scapegoat’, with its misleadingly cheerful post-punk guitar, comes close to being a Billy Bragg political satire. ‘The Burnet Rose’ is a beautiful folk song on the surface, with more elegant vocals from Katherine Mountain Whitaker, but with a more sinister back story. This widespread, rangy, hardy breed of wildflower covers the graves of Yorkshire plague victims from the 1600s. Callahan’s menacing drone over chilling strings is appropriate for the dire horror of ‘Bear Factory’, a true story about the murder of a primary schoolmate: “I’m a gap in the register and an empty desk/But I really did exist.” These two songs highlight Callahan’s ability, much like Lou Reed’s, to relay horrible stories without even blinking. ‘London By Blakelight’ provides a fuzzy, chiming psychedelic backing to William Blake’s bleak poem ‘London’. As Callahan has explained, ‘English Primitive I’ was full of ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘English Primitive II’ is his ‘Songs of Experience’. You can be sure that Callahan hears those “mind-forged manacles” in London that Blake wrote about too.