Rating: ****

SCRITTI POLITTI: White Bread, Black Beer (Rough Trade)

Green Gartside was never a man for rush jobs - this is only his second album in 18 years. More importantly, it’s the best thing he’s recorded since his creative peak, 1985’s Cupid & Psyche 85, back when he was a bona fide pop star.

White Bread, Black Beer is a hugely successful attempt to merge the futuristic textures used by Scritti in the mid-1980s with more conventional song structures. Half of it consists of vast, lush ballads (Locked, Petrococadollar, Window Wide Open),while the rest is psychedelic electro (E Eleventh Nuts, No Fine Lines), all of it drenched in panoramic keyboard tones and topped off by Green’s distinctive creamy falsetto, which has never sounded better.

Despite some unnecessarily obtuse moments - two songs abruptly turn into pastiches of The Kinks, of all things - WBBB is a sumptuous record. Scritti’s last album was so shapeless it sounded like the work of ten different bands, but this is in a totally different league.

SCRITTI POLITTI
White Bread Black Beer Rough Trade ****

The 50-year-old Green Gartside may no longer be the blousy, your-Mum-look-alike of the mid-1980s, but he doesn’t sound a day older than his Word Girl heyday on White Bread Black Beer, a sparkling return to form. Gartside’s legendary, misplaced perfectionism has finally drawn together the disparate elements that always made Scritti Politti such an enigmatic project. This is a move away from 1999’s ill-starred, rap-influenced Anomie & Bonhomie, and many of Gartside’s former trademarks make welcome returns. Bookish lyricism, post-punk riffery, dub basslines and fluent, sweet-pop melodies are artfully sewn into a gorgeously meandering collection of near-angelic pop songs. Nothing to quite top The Sweetest Girl, perhaps, but addictive tracks like the luscious Snow in Sun and multi-hued epic Dr Abernathy confirm that Scritti Politti really are the bee’s knees, not simply Wood Beez.
Johnnie Craig

I have very normal everyday memories with lots of music. When i hear Remain in Light from the Talking Heads, i always think of doing the dishes in my parents house, when i was there by myself when they were away on holiday. I remember finding the Who’s that girl soundstrack with a Scritti song on it, rushing to my mum’s house and getting the clean laundry, and go on my bike like mad back home (about half an hour) to listen to it.

To me, Cupid & Psyche belongs to the part of my life i started living on my own. The summer of 85 in a hot West-Rotterdam where smells of Surinam spicy food filled the air and dancing on Hypnotize in the Tudor-disco bar.

Sadly, no beautiful boys in those tales.

Listening on my MP3 player, I heard intricacies that I had missed on my first few listens in my studio at home and one thing really blew me away. In recent interviews, Green has said he listened to a lot of Brian Wilson, and feck me, it shows !!!!

The vocal arrangements in this album are very reminiscent of Brian’s harmonies, and the way Green has built interpolating syncopations with just his voice is sooooooo Beach Boys !

I hadn’t realised it before, but re-listen to other Scritti stuff and you can hear it there too ! And all along I thought Green’s vocal arrangements were more a nod to The Beatles, but it’s also a nod to the musical genius that is Mr Wilson

One thing I remember about Cupid & Psyche is that when I first heard it, I was having a break at my family’s place back home in Italy. I was deeply “in love” with a girl back home and the two weeks we were apart were typically painful in that “teenage love” way. Cupid got me through those two weeks and I still think of the Alps, the fields and this girl every time I hear it.

Well, funnily enough, on the train as I was listening to WBBB, a young girl got on and sat opposite me. She was stunningly attractive, so much so, it took my breath away. Now, I sat there, very struck by her beauty and the songs on WBBB just seemed to fit the emotions I got seeing this goddess.

It was very much the same as what I was feeling 21 years ago with Cupid !

I guess it was more a personal thing, but it really blew me away

So, listen to Scritti and attract beautiful people !! LOL :)

It’s a brief, factually incorrect piece of crap written by someone who really wouldn’t know good music if it came and bit him on the bollox (thought I’d get the “bollox” in as Ellen seems to like it The word, not the actual bollox, well, not that I’m making asumptions…..oh dear, pass me a spade to keep digging this hole !! LOL)

Sure, I’m a fan, and in my eyes, Green can do no wrong. But to write this turgid piece of ineffectual crap wasn’t worth his time and will probably only be read by a bunch of kids(with all due respect to Mike, who I’m sure has much better tastes than this guy and has the sense to see past some drivel like this Keep diggin’ Rob !! LOL)

http://www.cdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=2857