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Album Review

Robyn Hitchcock
Chronolology Yep Roc download only

Article written by Ged M - Nov 19, 2011

Robyn Hitchcock: Chronology

Robyn Rowan Hitchcock is a cult.

For 35 years, he’s wandered a singular road, building a reputation but avoiding regimentation despite being signed by two US majors. His talent has been allowed to develop like a long-bubbling goulash, a strange chemistry that’s taken him from a punkoid Syd Barrett to a weirdly visionary character like a Home Counties David Lynch. He’s performed solo and in various configurations with people like Peter Buck and Gillian Welch, released an album of Dylan covers, had a few college radio hits, and yet never lost that surreal humour and sense of melancholy rainy-day Englishness.

For someone with so much music behind him, it seems strange that it’s taken until now to create a “best of”. Chronolology, compiled by Mr Hitchcock himself, is “one of many possible orbits through my world”. It takes in the Soft Boys’ peerless psych-punk, the solo and Egyptians years, the Soft Boys reunion, collaboration with David Rawlings and Gillian Welch and work with the Venus 3 (‘Venus 3’ being a tribute to the Venus 13 novel of his father, Raymond). But it’s never enough; in my case I'm left longing for ‘Already Yeah’ and ‘The Yip Song’ (who else could rhyme “Vera Lynn” with “septicaemia setting in”?) to name but two.

Chronolology starts with the spiky surrealism of the Soft Boys, typified by the bizarre lyrics of ‘Kingdom of Love’. By the solo work exemplified by ‘I Often Dream of Trains’ he's become more poetic and poignant, though just as odd: “there in the buffet car I wait for eternity…or Basingstoke…or Reading”. ‘My Wife and My Dead Wife’ is a surreal take on threesomes, ‘Madonna Of The Wasps’ full of jangly Byrds-isms, and ‘Queen Elvis’ is a lyrical lovesong, full of aching melancholy and a melodic gem. In the course of these tracks you hear visions of Barrett, Lennon, Bowie, Dylan and the Psychedelic Furs, but above all the uniquely Hitchcockian voice that also holds accents of Mervyn Peake, Salvador Dali and Monty Python.

It’s inadequate, ultimately, like any overview of a 35 year career is likely to be in 16 tracks but as a reminder of his consistent quality through different phases it’s excellent. And it's sad that there's no space for his sketches and stories, which show other aspects of his genius. But, as a starting point for the Hitchcock tyro, it’s an invaluable stargate into another universe of strange metaphor, dry humour and a humane overview of our condition from a restless, relentless mind.

Links:
http://www.robynhitchcock.com/
http://www.yeproc.com/artist_info.php?artistId=171
http://www.myspace.com/robynhitchcock