Julian Cope - Teardrop Explodes

There's no doubt that Julian Cope is a larger-than-life character: an aspiring popstar at the helm of Teardrop Explodes, later a sort of lysergic guru of the English cultural underground, an expert on German and Japanese experimental rock (having helped introduce Western audiences to both scenes), and a devotee of the ancient civilizations that once populated the British Isles. He wrote a guide to local megalithic sites, "The Modern Antiquarian", which won praise even in academic circles, and ever since then some have taken to calling him a "druid".

He's a restless mind, with wide-ranging interests that often look beyond his own culture, and the kind of curiosity that marks out great intellectuals. All this despite the extreme positions with which he occasionally colours otherwise brilliant analyses, which only need to be taken with a slight pinch of salt.

The breakup of Teardrop Explodes was something of a trauma for Cope, who found himself pushed out of the creative process by keyboardist David Balfe - who wasn't even one of the band's founders (despite having played a fundamental role in its success). Their third album was left unfinished, after Cope refused to sing over backing tracks he felt didn't match his own vision.

Partly out of disappointment, partly due to the heavy acid use that marked that period, Cope decided to retreat to the countryside to regain some personal stability.

It's during this time that he certainly wrote the songs for his debut solo album, "World Shut Your Mouth" (1984), and in all likelihood also those for its follow-up, given how little time separates the release of the two: just six months.

"Fried" came out in November 1984, and from the cover art alone it seems intent on symbolising the artist's rebirth after a destructive period: Cope appears naked, crouched on the ground, with a turtle shell strapped to his back.

He surrounded himself with a winning team, including producer and guitarist Steve Lovell (at the time also working with A Flock Of Seagulls, and later with Blur), oboist Kate St. John (from sophisti-pop trio Dream Academy), guitarist Donald Ross Skinner (a collaborator he would often return to throughout his career), and celebrated session drummer Chris Whitten. Cope himself handled the rest, having by then become a fairly accomplished multi-instrumentalist (not exactly a virtuoso, perhaps, but certainly an explorer).

Lovell and Kate St. John had already left their mark on "World Shut Your Mouth", and their return explains the similarity in sound between the two records. Although the first is generally considered the pop album and the second the more experimental, psychedelic one, the common thread runs through the guitars (jangle pop on the rhythm side, dissonance and roughness during the digressions), Cope's own bass lines, and the occasional but always distinctive oboe melodies.

One such melody opens the album, kicking off the intricate art punk of "Reynard The Fox", split into two clearly distinct parts: in the first, which follows a conventional song structure, Cope sings of a fugitive whose family has been wiped out, shifting between first and third person as if the perspective kept sliding from protagonist to onlooker. That protagonist is the one Cope refers to as Reynard The Fox, the anthropomorphic fox tied to a cycle of legends from northern Europe dating between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.

In the second part - marked by a distinctive spoken-word section - it becomes clear, however, that Cope, even while narrating entirely in the third person this time, is actually talking about himself, referencing events that shaped his recent life, from his isolation in the countryside to the on-stage incident where, under the influence of LSD, he cut himself with a dagger, shocking those present. Luckily it turned out to be only a superficial wound. The moment where he recounts the episode is marked by his anguished screams, as the drums kick into a frenzy and the guitars grind out bursts of notes in harsh, distorted tones.

Having established that Cope himself is the subject of the song, one wonders about the point of the first part, since there's no evidence his family was actually wiped out: it could be some cryptic existential metaphor, or perhaps simply a description of a hallucinogenic whirlwind.

"Bill Drummond Said", a vitriolic invective against former manager Bill Drummond (future member of the seminal electronic project Klf), opens with soft guitar jangle mixed with the sound of backwards-run tape. It's an exquisite choral pop tune, with harmonies revealing Julian Cope's love for the vocal interplay of Sixties bands, British and otherwise. The sweetness of the music clashes with the personal attack of the lyrics (a dreamlike scene in which Drummond ends up strangling a woman), creating a grotesque effect steeped in black humor. A few years later, Bill Drummond would respond with the track "Julian Cope Is Dead".

"Laughing Boy" is a tiptoeing track, resting on barely-brushed drums and delicate guitar harmonies, with Cope's light, dreamy voice alternating with the pastoral lines of the oboe. One of the least commercial tracks on the record, it was inexplicably chosen to be accompanied by a promotional video clip, itself rather uningratiating, shot during the same photo session that produced the cover image.

It was instead "Sunspots" that was released as a physical single, several months after the album's release and without much success. A powerful, bright and upbeat post-punk track, with reverbed drums, bass and rhythm guitar well to the fore, and a couple of synthesizer notes that, layered over the guitar riff, seem to recreate the same melodic sequence underpinning "Are 'Friends' Electric?" by Tubeway Army and Gary Numan. The arrangement nonetheless travels on entirely different frequencies, as shown by the recorder solo and the ending with exotic percussion and a choral crescendo: a return, then, to the Sixties baroque pop that Cope has never hidden being an admirer of.

"The Bloody Assizes" is a wild mix of new wave, punk and country music, ready to compete in territory not unlike that of contemporary American band Wall Of Voodoo, while "Search Party" returns to intimate folk sketch territory, between ethereal vocals, acoustic guitar and an oboe that climbs melancholy scales in the chorus, rendered almost celestial by the echo effect.

Notable for its brisk, energetic pace despite its spare arrangement is the piano march "O King Of Chaos", lightly embroidered by an electric organ in the chorus. The closing track, "Torpedo", a bucolic vignette entrusted this time to organ alone, likewise rests entirely on keyboards.

Often labeled a psychedelic pop-rock album, "Fried" is also one of the most creative and varied records of English new wave. The fact that it retains a psychedelic streak doesn't exclude it from the other current, of which Cope had been an emblem until shortly before with Teardrop Explodes, and which he would continue to skirt for a few more years, in the more radio-friendly - though never crass - records that would characterize the rest of his Eighties, before diving into the whirlpools of chaotic experimental rock in the Nineties.

After all, British new wave was full of psychedelic records: just think of the first three albums by Echo And The Bunnymen (particularly the third, "Porcupine", with its Indian-tinged tones), or the Soft Boys of Robyn Hitchcock. The important thing is not to confuse the attitude - undoubtedly psychedelic for all the names mentioned, Cope included - with belonging to the cultural and musical movement of the moment, in which these artists were fully immersed.

In any case, "Fried" was a resounding commercial flop, and Mercury dropped him from the label without much ceremony. Having signed with Island a couple of years later, Cope would find some modest commercial success starting in 1986, with the single "World Shut Your Mouth", which curiously had nothing to do with the album of the same name released two years earlier.

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09/06/2019