Eugene McGuinness
The Early Learnings Of...
Double Six
Hailing from Northern Ireland (via Liverpool and London apparently, whatever that means) the 21 year old Eugene McGuinness follows hs single 'Monsters Under The Bed' with his first album, ‘The Early Learnings Of…’, on Domino's new publishing off-shoot Double Six.
Eight tracks clock in at a compact half-hour and take the listener on a brightly coloured trip through the nocturnal anxieties of McGuinness. The journey is peopled by Vampires and ‘Monsters Under The Bed’ and pleas to ‘Turn Up The radio’ and drown out the troubled voices in his head.
Sounds traumatic, but McGuinness works in the same vein of musical whimsy as label alumni The Magnetic Fields. In fact, album opener ‘High Score’ has a bouncing, bittersweet quality which mines dangerously close to former band’s particular sound. There is plenty of layering to the melodies, switching between acoustic orchestration and synthesised keyboard in a manner similar to Gulag Orkestar.
‘English Rain’ and ‘Big Issue Salesmen’ feature in McGuinness’s pitch to wrestle the title of suburban, lyrical laureates from the likes of Belle and Sebastien. In ‘Bold Street’ we veer across a streetscene of buskers and schoolboys and late-night vomit before skipping into a rendition of Twinkle-twinkle little star. The displaced, alienation of Morrissey is always in McGuinness’s sights, but there is none of the raw bite to it. Eugene is a young, middle-class, street-poet whose strolls through the city always lead him back to the comfort of his TV set, internet connection and a pot noodle. You sense his gentle, metropolitan paranoia will never take him anywhere really challenging.
Highlights like ‘Monsters Under The Bed’ and ‘A Child Lost Tesco’ seize you with their chirpy restlessness and lyrical flair. It’s all bit of a musical fairground, bright lights and ghost-trains, but you’re never in any real danger as Mc Guinness busily fills his notebook with new things to worry about.
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28th Jul 2007 - Tumblr
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