Record Collector October 2004

Wreckless Eric
Bungalow Hi
*****
Southern Domestic SND002 (60:00)

Maverick genius in shock return-to-form makes Album of the Year?

After his one-man-&-his-guitar shows this year, this comes as a huge surprise. Eric 'accompanies himself on solartron oscillator, Farfisa Compact, Hammond L100, harmonium, a couple of cheap samples and a fuzzbox' as well as of course, guitars. It's a thoroughly contemporary-sounding record that would comfortably sit alongside Graham Coxon, Two Lone Swordsmen or The Coral in terms of its variety of sounds and influences.
It is a quirky, dark, atmospheric album with eight narrative-based songs and four off-the-wall experimental instrumentals - the best of which sounds like Elmer Bernstein and A Tribe Called Quest remixed by Lee Perry while Andrew Wheatherall nods in approval.
Same, Local and Housewives may be uninspiring titles but are autobiographical, tragic-comic soap-operettas. The centrepiece is 33s & 45s, concerning a relationship break-up and custody battle over the record collection; "We sorted out the 33s and 45s and every single record was a memory...." Eric's exclamation towards the end of the song partly explains why, after more than a quarter of a century in the business he's finally made a contender for album of the year. "They might be so many bits of plastic to some people, but they're fucking everything to me!"....an album to cherish.

Ged Babey