»It was meant to be funny«, it sounds down the telephone receiver in »Cholestorol Test«, the opener by DIY post-punk duo Gichard, and somehow that could mean everything one might subsume under life, existence or being. But it does not. Not for a long time now. And now? Giving up is not an option, standing above things seems composed but is often arrogant, and when was cynicism actually last cool?
Music that dresses itself in absurdities and observations in order to wrest something from the m a d n e s s out there has to move along this narrow ridge, where one sits down beside the audience instead of preaching head-on. Yes, putting one’s finger in the privileged wound is necessary; too cool for school, however, was yesterday too. Lisa Jones is the short-story writer and songwriter who can do all of that. She knows us, she knows herself. She knows everyone who flees into bizarro humour when what they need more urgently than anything is a hug.
That is why the four-track ghost »Your Private Hell«, with lines about gifted sausages and fish gone travelling, the detached non-singing, the trembling drums and grim jangle guitars, is nothing other than a beautiful love song. And of course you know this music, at least somehow, if you know Dry Cleaning or Anika. The sort of thing that happens when lo-fi, drum machines, guitars with attitude and emotion-free British sprechgesang come together. Only you no longer need the rest once you arrive at Gichard. It does not matter at all whether that conviction lasts. Here and now, these monologues by Jones may be the only thing that still makes sense.
Chins For Lefty
