Notes
The long awaited follow up to 2000's "Champagne Reception" (the vinyl edition of which sold out on the day of release) continues the wayward travels of songwriter Matt Jones and The Hepburns. The Hepburns' Welsh landscape is alive with ghosts, rife with drama, and stamped with the footprints of pink elephants. The album weaves a wobbly path through gardens and derelict hotels, eavesdropping on tales of beer bubbles, Turkish delight and TV oblivion. Jones sketches this remote countryside with his characteristic wit-more Jake Thackray than Momus-part comic and part melancholy, a belief that all humor springs from the bad things in life... and springs eternal. The Hepburns' work for Radio Khartoum continues to be marked by a curious breed of semi-instrumental-jaunty numbers which provide the record with the seductive ebb and flow of an imaginary soundtrack. This album marks the debut of the band's augmented line up, which now includes brass and woodwinds. Fans of +-l Records, the Lucksmiths, Bacharach, Barry, Morricone, the Monochrome Set, the Smiths, the Specials, Momus and Jake Thackray would do well to look this way. And yes, these are the same Hepburns who appeared for a few brief magical moments on Cherry Red once upon a time.
