The witching hour edges ever closer. The album launch gig (or should I say release gig – especially for Coco) for this majestic brooding masterpiece in Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms on 19th July looms large. I for one am expecting nothing less than a spectacular show from this singularity unconventional quartet who are currently one of Scotland’s most exciting music exports. To coin a phrase oft made by the bands manager “you should go”!
Audio Pleasure is a uniquely bewitching album from a band like no other, each member brings something different to the mix from their varied backgrounds in several Scottish bands from across the decades. Coco (Gin Goblins/Voicex) with his indefatigable bass lines and Russell Burn (Fire Engines/Win) on drums, programming and production forming the basis of the band, with Hettie (The Gussets) coming onboard and adding her own inimitable lyrical tales and enigmatic vocal, with the line up completed by Mungo (Night Caller*) and Ricky (Brian Jonestown Massacre) providing the guitar soundscapes. (Read an interview with the band here).
Scorpio Leisure exude an edifying essence that captured my imagination and my heart from my first exposure to the band whose absorbing sound is shrouded in a cloud of alluring mystery.
The album opens with the sinuously lithe bass lines of Serpentine underlining a hypnotic layered swathe of electronic psychedelia paired with a woozy vocal from Hettie. As the album moves on to the title track of the bands recent Apology EP, that laid back vocal from the consummate front woman takes on an air of thinly veiled antipathy “I’m still waiting for that apology, that’ll never come…” she sings before adding “are you still talking? Why don’t you just shut you mouth” as the band play to a louche almost dub reggae rhythm, the swell of agitated guitars ebbing and flowing to match Ms Noir’s dramatic vocal inflections.
Live favourite Running on the Spot follows, continuing in the same vein, swirling guitars topping the mellifluously giddy rhythm, but don’t let Hettie’s demure purring vocal fool you, there is something about this song that borders on the discomfitting. Then there is Feral Life, a tale of living life on your own terms and not being tied down to societal norms “my mother told me I’d make no wife, and why would I want to be trouble and strife?” with strong sexual undertones “I love my veggies, but I dig your meat” This song is like Stray Cat Strut but from a feisty female perspective, a declaration of intent for a life wild and free, like the music. The instruments here have a certain feline swagger as they squeal and caterwaul like creatures of the night.
Musically Vibrate and Shake channels the feeling of Sexy Boy, but with Hettie’s sultry vocal, the song is laced with an underlying capricious Air of unsettling menace and sleaze. As you may expect with a title like Pulse Beat, this is one of the most upbeat songs on the album, while still maintaining that late night atmosphere of taut sexual tension as it reaches its frenzied climax. The disconcerting feeling of capriciousness continues into Fanzine, a clamorous slow burner, the layering of instruments building the tension as Hettie repeats the line “I really like you” with a sinister stalkerish tone.
The closing three tracks are a perfect example of three of the myriad sides of this multi-faceted band.
The thinly veiled antipathy displayed in the lyrics and vocal delivery of Apology grows into a menacing loathing on Parasite, Hettie playing the part of acid-tongued smiling assassin, the venomous nature of the lyrics delivered with a sense of scathing delight right from the off “double denim – yeah that’s a look, the fact you think it’s cool makes me just wanna puke”. The subject of the lyrics will be in no doubt about her feelings towards them…
What follows in Don’t Get Pulled In is a beautifully fragile baring of the soul, a profoundly affecting lyric opening up about life’s anxieties, “I’m worried about tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day…” the lyrics are empathetically matched by a deep resonance in the ebow guitar sound and melodica. Both in sentiment and sound, the song wouldn’t be out of place in one of my favourite film scores – Betty Blue.
As the album reaches its edifying close, there is a poetic feeling of coming full circle in that the song that closes the album is the very song that first caught my imagination. Driving demonstrates a feeling of joyful release, an emotional feeling of “getting life back” as the lyrics in the penultimate track allude to. There is a certain positivity that breaks through in the music and hushed vocal…a feeling of driving out of the darkness into the light…
Even if it means driving through the night, you need to get to Voodoo Rooms on the 19th for what promises to be a very special night
Scorpio Leisure (lastnightfromglasgow.com) – Scorpio Leisure-Audio Pleasure (@scorpio_leisure) • Instagram photos and videos
*Check out one if the years best singles too from Night Caller in the shape of the superb Number One Wee Guy