The Baudelaires take their name from French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire. To generations of university students, Baudelaire cloaked alcoholic indulgence in poetic elegance, “It is the hour to be drunken. To escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk.”
Baudelaire also said that “To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.” As a dedicated fan of opiates, Baudelaire would probably appreciate the artistic dexterity involved in exploring psychedelic realms without disappearing up his own fundament.
And that’s why Baudelaire would like his namesake’s album, Musk Hill. Songs such as Scrapbooker and Snapper Steve are rich kaleidoscopic textures, dirty garage riffs and lilting vocals. Foxglove is a walk into life’s lysergic perimeter; Lucy Leave takes Them’s Gloria and thrusts it under Timothy Leary’s colourful gaze. Colour Mary is heavy, man; Bomber Dan is a freak out Brian Jonestown Massacre with all the trappings. Life’s Too Short for Longboards is as surfishly invigorating as its title is metaphorically profound. Whet Denim is an extended moment of enlightenment via The Stooges’ 1970 and the meandering Dweller opens your eyes to all sorts of shit, some of it confronting, but all of it inspiring.
Yep, Baudelaire would know where these guys are coming from.
By Patrick Emery
