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Andrew Weatherall, "The Bullet Catcher's Apprentice"
As a household name for anyone who knows his or her electronic music, it’s a surprise that its taken this long for Andrew Weatherall’s to drop his first solo record. Aside from a few remixes and mix records, he’s always been a team player in projects like Sabres of Paradise and Two Lone Swordsmen. Always seen as more of an ideas man than a knob twiddler, this five track EP reveals again his skill for crossing the genre gaps and keeping his vision as eclectic as ever, but this time on his own.
Normally from LP to LP you can rely on Weatherall’s perfidy, his progressions from style-to-style ditching conquered musical territories in his wake. This EP is more of a career roundup than a forward-looking release, but it’s a great spot to spark up a solo discography. Touching on key identifiable points of his past projects (see the silky techno beats on Two Lone Swordsmen sound-alike "Edie 11"), each track here could be a prime cut ready for a best of compilation. But as with all Weatherall projects he’s never yet taken the obvious / easy route. Even the most commercial cut here, a surly track "You Can't do Disco Without a Strat", features an incredibly odd girl group sing-along of the title that sounds utterly out of place and sarcastic. Matched with his half sneer vocals and a melody that wobbles in and out of dancefloor focus, this shows he’s still got that leftfield lean. The bonus remix of this track by UK’s Repeat/Repeat duo takes a minor glitch route through the same track, keeping the moody quotient well in the red. Everything here has that gaping switchblade stab wound twist that seperates Weatherall from just another melodic electronica pioneer.
Sounding like a shinier exploration of mid-career Sabres territory, "La Sirena" is a stilted and sometimes squelchy enormous electro monster. Plucked rockabilly guitar notes ride shotgun alongside a doom dub bass; a compulsory head nodder. It’s instantly Weatherall, bringing back memories of Sabresonic’s urban murk. The nearest touchstone on the opening "Feathers" is a less frenetic New Order, the scratchy guitar, live drums and a big fat Hooky bassline.
After a brief off-radar break it looks like the man is back to claim his spot, not that anyone could ever take it.
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