A LONDON SONGBOOK
LA LIGA – “Out In London (Breaks Mix)”: A track which actually has some resonance. It doesn’t manage to evoke anything of the gleeful stumble of London nightlife but its boxy, taut breaks and wriggling bleeps do suggest a tube station at rush hour or Oxford Street on a Saturday: the aggressive Booleian motion of people stuck in a crowd.
VARIETY LAB – “London In The Rain”: Rain again? Well I never. Parisian chicmongers Variety Lab say they like it, though judging by the sound this rain transmutes into glimmer and stardust as soon as it reaches the rooftops. I do not like London in the rain, unless I’m snug and cosy and inside: London after it’s been raining is another story, but nobody ever sings about that.
PATRICK WOLF – “London”: London as a fickle lover who must be abandoned. “I taste the Thames with my cycle lights”. Romanticising London usually fails, I think – the place is just too big to be objectified, why care about something that can never care about you? Though the mournful chimes and lonesome strings here have a definite corny appeal.