Chicago Daily Herald
August 13, 1999
Hitchcock's Jewels Sparkles With Wordplay
Robyn Hitchcock, Jewels For Sophia (Warner Bros.) ****
by Mark Guarino
Robyn Hitchcock is a songwriter who makes witty, rich albums not many people have heard. But enough have, so the British cult hero has friends like film director Jonathan Demme, who recently made him the center of his documentary Storefront Hitchcock, and Warner Bros., which amazingly keeps putting out his albums despite their low commercial expectations.
His newest is thick with the jokes, wordplay, and dark, dangerous turns found on all his albums. But it also is the most accessible musically. "Viva Sea-Tac", a tribute to the Washington State cities some of this album was recorded in, is a sloppy Garage Rock-er courtesy of R.E.M. axeman Peter Buck. While on surface it's a love letter ("Long live everything in Washington State", he shouts), it also salutes the area's gluttonous smugness, with the brilliant blessing, "They got the best computers and coffee and smack".
For Hitchcock, most everything is below the surface, but even if the listener doesn't get there, the surreal trimmings are fascinating in themselves. One of the best songs ("The Cheese Alarm") appears to be about cheese. The exotic percussion and hurried guitarwork are the background for the litany of cheeses Hitchcock strings together, ending with the conclusion "Half the world starving the half the world bloats".
He's got this great working class brogue in his voice that makes him sound either wonderfully mad or utterly sincere. That's best on songs like "I Feel Beautiful", a pretty, whispered love song with harmonies supplied by Grant Lee Buffalo's Grant-Lee Phillips. Every song sounds swelling from some dream Hitchcock has, either of an antwoman ("Antwoman") or buddying up to Buzz Aldrin. The music, Fuzz Blues to Eastern Funk or just gorgeous Baroque Folk ("No, I Don't Remember Guildford"), continually refresh this album. The highbrow daydreams of a lowbrow poet, perhaps.
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