Like a recidivist grave robber, Mick Harvey returns for a third time to pillage the rather substantial body of work left by Serge Gainsbourg. This is a mausoleum that keeps drawing Harvey, and shows no sign of abating in his desire to re-enliven the work of the famous French dandy.
Like a bourgeoisie chimney sweep, Gainsbourg managed to straddle the divide between aristocratic musings and drug den bohemianism. Similarly, Harvey steps too close to the cliff edge and has to catch himself from teetering over.
It is with a degree of morbid irony that the album begins with The Man With The Cabbage Head. With Deadly Tedium and Coffee Colour we are introduced to seedy debauchery of late nights filled with lust.
Just like the original, SS C’est Bon is a sucker punch of Wagnerian jack booting with frantic lyrics and feedback. The blistering finale leads into an equally anguished I Envisage, which stumbles around with gin soaked abandon to its sinister refrain of “I envisage the worst”. Unlike the first two volumes of this project, the songs are less familiar and more obscure, although the debauched roots are omnipresent. A Violent Poison, That’s What Love Is or The Decadence are examples of this.
More And More, Less And Less is similar to previous interpretive work but kudos to Harvey for tackling a difficult subject with a degree of inventiveness and guile. Don’t Say A Thing is an especially vibrant example, a mouth watering chocolate that ends up leaving a mouthful of chipped teeth. There is clearly life in this project yet.
BY BRONIUS ZUMERIS
