CHRISTIAN LUNCH released a couple of EPs on his own Fish Ranch label whilst living and lurking around the periphery of the Los Angeles music scene. He then took it upon himself to uproot and migrate to foreign parts, his only luggage being the Teac 4-track strapped to his back. He now resides in Hamburg and has vowed not to return to his native continent until Reagan departs the White House.
He first reached my eager ears with ‘Jokes On You’, a contribution to the Let Then Eat Jellybeans compilation, and a delivering blessed with strident slabs of guitar, synth chirps, a marching beat and lyric decrying the current state of the States.
‘Political rock and roll songs have about as much impact as fly on a windscreen. I’ve got fingers in other methods that do something about windscreens’ said Christian as he declared ‘Jokes On You’ to be a Clash piss-take and sent me a copy of this album containing his ‘other methods’.
Konkurrenz is a semi-independent label, part of German Phonogram. The issue of Shark Bait placed Lunch in the unenviable position of being shunned by fully independent operators as being too upmarket while also cold shouldered by big stores as too weird. This ironic state of affairs prompted the album’s opening 21 seconds of ‘A Message From the Board’ begging a fair hearing…[lost section of review]
… ‘Monika Po’ is a quick-stepping ballad with a crazy chorus and a bleating little synth. The whole song eventually breaks into a an excuse for a mutant jitterbug.
The synth grows more grandiose and the Lunch larynx ascends to tonsil-straining yelps on ‘Pogo Muzak’, perhaps the punky backside of M’s Pop Music. Bryan Ferry captured in a nightmare of nightclubbing nonsense is the image provoked by the aptly-titled ‘Mambo Jumbo’, A few whiffs of its catchy chorus and you’ll be singing it in the street pronto.
Bursting out from the grooves like an American detective series theme is ‘Tears From Jurgen Po’, a rapid paced chasing-its-tail rhythm with tinkles of piano and a gloriously tinny selection of guitar pings. In vivid but matching contrast are tracks such as ’Bauhaus Retreads’, eerie gloom-laden (backwards?) intro music partnered by the pain of drowning voices. This whole two minute epic transforms into something like a vocoder given a voice of its own.
My favourite, so far, is ‘Animal Life’ an excited babbly of a Residents-type background choir over alternating tones, opening the rusty lid on a gory cesspit of sordid street life and managing to recite an hilarious dialogue.
All that and thirteen other tracks I haven’t even mentioned (‘Strangling Of A Small Dog’ and ‘Music For Senile Buddhist Quartet’ for example). Most of the record is sung in German but don’t worry, I don’t understand it either. Still a highly recommended shake-up of scathing sarcasm and musical adventuring. Catch it if you can.
