Graham Coxon - 'Live At The Zodiac' (Parlophone)
4/5
By: Toby L
It's with fond, teary eyes and reverence we look back to Graham Coxon's assault on the Oxford Zodiac in 2004. It was one of those worthy trips country-wards, where a provincial dosage of feedback-drenched, avant-pop trickery seemed just the ticket.
It remains so on celluloid. The fact is, these days, as if his 'Happiness In Magazines' LP of last year wasn't proof enough, enjoying Graham Coxon needn't be an exclusive duty to those newly Sonic Youth-obsessive, ex-Blur fans that were too cool for Damon's cartoon-band frolics anymore. He's got a spate of great tunes now. And a whole nuclear force-field of noisy shit in between.
The clunking rhythmic splutter of 'Escape Song' opens, the wall-of-pop 'Spectacular' follows, the crowd moves slightly, and soon enough the blitzing, daft punk of 'I Wish' opens, just Graham and guitar, then - mid-way - full band kicking in, and knackering the senses. An official 'hairs-on-end' moment. And one that returns with the shivering solitude and ambience of lurching ballad, 'All Over Me'.
The rest, comparatively, is f**king noisy. Bluesy-woozy slumper 'Girl Done Gone' is completely filthy, turgid guitar dissonance; 'Freakin' Out', is the messiestm yet vital, we've heard it, and the bow-out rendition of 'Who The F**k' is cranium-imploding. Ruddy, bloody hell. It's a display.
Blessed be our DVD, however; extras number charismatic, colourful videos for all the recent 'Magazines' singles, and a comparatively more restrained acoustic set, as captured more recently at Coxon's ICA art-show stand. Intimate, shy, lonely, and nestled behind his guitar whilst seated, the great bespectacled plucks and whines quietly to a more obscure blaring of his catalogue. And particularly glaring is a tearful 'Baby You're Out Of Your Mind'; Graham's distinctly fragile vulnerability is often tantamount to his very evident and quite intoxicating talent, and here the two entwine to warming, resolute effect.
A stopgap between the already eagerly awaited new work, Graham Coxon - in this 'as is' document - still occupies a space few could hope to; twisting the confines of convention and providing some thrilling, white-noise disarray along the way. It's a marriage few could dare to pull off with quite so much honesty.
Artists in this article: Graham Coxon
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