THE SUNDAY CORRESPONDENTS

URBAN HEADSPACE : JONNY COLA & THE A GRADES ' IN DEBT

When one my favourite bands, Luxembourg, dissipated, I was greatly comforted by the fact several of its members went on to other projects, refracting the original artistic brilliance into different, yet complementary pieces. Vocalist David Shah went on to satirical chamber pop as The Melting Ice Caps and The Soft Close-Ups; guitarist Rob Britton released a solo album of dreamy pop and has now joined the twee outfit Brontosaurus Chorus; and keyboardist Alex Potterill created an alias Jonny Cola to lead the intelligent glam-rock group Jonny Cola and the A Grades. Potterill, along with his A Grades (Maura Venegas, Jez Leather, Aurora Sommer, and Nicholas Bukowski), took the camp and androgyny of Luxembourg and parlayed it into a vicious juggernaut of preening snark and fractured self-doubt. Their debut full-length album, In Debt, released at the end of October, and it’s a fulfillment of all they promised to be in their previous release, last year’s The Yellow Mini.

The Yellow Mini contained seven tracks, including the catchy Disappearing Act, and was dedicated to “everything that’s been lost and all that we’re yet to lose.” In Debt expands on The Yellow Mini’s songs of a desperate urban existence at the beginning of the twenty-first century, hyper-connected, but alienated, young, but used up.

The opening track, Fireworks/Gunshots, encapsulates the album’s themes and sets the tone by eliciting both a sense of celebration and danger; throughout the record, the risk of being wounded vies in turns with the yearning for an explosion of reckless excitement. This album is conspicuously tied to the urban landscape, particularly to London, which is referenced profusely (ie: Zone 2, Marlborough Road, SE5, Dartmouth Park, Lorrimore Square). Space and place dominate this collection of tracks – living in Zone 2 rather than North Cheam is pregnant with meaning. And along with physical distances gained and lost, there are emotional territories being battled over and surrendered in these songs. With equal parts 70s glam vocals, scrappy punk protest, and swelling ballads, In Debt is a brilliant musical exploration of things falling apart.

Vulnerability threads through the twelve tracks (on the physical promo copy I have there’s a brief instrumental Track 6 and a hidden track entitled Clown), appearing alternately in life-affirming, sweeping choruses and in clipped, bitter commentary. Most of the songs trace relationship struggles in all of their messy glory, shifting from the guitar riff frenzy of Marlborough Road to the brooding clang of Hideaway 37 to the heartbreaking Alpha Male. Potterill’s lyrics are vibrant with wit and tender moments; memories inhabit the fabric of each physical spot, prompting both a futile grasping for stasis and an urgent plea to run and hide. There’s a romantic restlessness to the musical journey; at one moment it’s breaking and bursting with frustration and momentum, at another moment it’s rich with gentle, but no less passionate, ballads of reminiscence, regret and reevaluation. The lead single, The Party’s Over, feels like slamming your body into a series of walls, trying to repair what was disjointed and contorted. Spaces become increasingly more personal on this record; for example there’s a reference to vacating Skyhome in the blistering track Offline, Skyhome being the location of recording The Yellow Mini. Small enclosures like greenhouses and bedrooms become areas of regression and abandon, perhaps sometimes both at the same time.

The final track proper, Out of Focus, is mournfully beautiful in its insistence on struggling forward even when the instinct is to cut off all communication and retreat to the bedroom:

If I could paint at all
I’d render the view from here
On my bedroom wall
Then cut the phone
Kill the internet
Brick up the windows and lock the doors

But I…I’m not that kind of artist
Thank God that I lack discipline and diagnosis

The hidden track, Clown, is also worth a mention for its understated melody and softer, almost deadened, vocals; it reminds me of Brian Eno’s oddly ominous Dead Finks Don’t Talk. Wading its sad way through a fragmented stream of consciousness, the song seems to encapsulate perfectly the random immediacy of electronic communication like texting, where emotions are expressed via binary code and pixelated smiles.

In Debt is one of my top albums of 2010, the perfect tonic for those of us who are intellectually and emotionally overspent. It feels as though Potterill used the narrator of these songs to pull himself out of the temptation of self-imposed solitude and to force an engagement with the world’s terms, even when it leaves you battered, bewildered, and breathless. Though you may be an anti-hero in a shadowy urban wasteland, this record keeps you moving and sometimes throws up the requisite shelter you need to keep feeling and fighting. This album wrenches you back into and out of yourself, a musical chiropractor for your psychic kinks.

In Debt is currently available digitally via Corporate Records.

Visit Jonny Cola and the A Grades website right here.

mp3 : Jonny Cola and the A Grades - Fireworks/Gunshots

mp3 : Jonny Cola and the A Grades - The Party's Over

Anglopunk, Sunday 5 December 2010