Description
Label Review.
2020 album. Also available on Vinyl.
Our Overview.
Much has been written about Welsh indie band Young Marble Giants’ small, perfect catalogue, which contained roughly two-dozen songs, nearly each one a perfect gem. Less is known about Stuart Moxham’s long wilderness years after the break-up of his first professional band. His next project, The Gist, chopped YMG’s minimalism into a new sound. “This Is Love”, “Public Girls” and “Fool For A Valentine” showed his songs to be razor-sharp, but the album’s fragmented pieces were a step too far for some, though even the strangest, “Carnival Headache”, when cast in sunlight by Alison Statton’s combo Weekend, was as fine a song as any he’d written - and “Love At First Sight” became a million-seller when covered by Etienne Daho. Then Stuart disappeared.
A mid-90s resurgence led to fine albums done on low budgets, before more silence followed. The Gist’s 2017’s release ‘Holding Pattern’ - unexpected and then quickly followed by YMG singer Alison Statton’s first new album with her accompanist Spike in two decades, adding fuel to public interest. ‘The Devil Laughs’, recorded a few years back, is a compelling addition to the canon of Moxham’s songwriting. Stuart’s generally unadorned musical presentation does not hinder his appreciation for the skills of Louis Philippe, whose iconic arrangements across an array of Él label albums inspire the fierce devotion of aficionados around the world.
“Tidy Away” is Young Marble Giants redux, though the backing vocals hint at maturity which band didn’t live to see. “Fighting To Lose”, written with producer Ken Brake, would pass as a worthy b-side to “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, and although the songs are otherwise Stuart’s, Louis fans will delight at several, like “Love Hangover” and “Sky Over Water”, which display his style and production genius as succinctly as anything on his own albums. ‘The Devil Laughs’ is as out of its time as ‘Colossal Youth’ was - its subtle but immediate beauty, devoid of “rock”, is a recording best understood in the light of those obscure groundbreakers who inspired it - the faux barbershop vocals of Smile-era Beach Boys, the studio lustre of Tom Wilson’s work with Simon & Garfunkel, a dash of The Swingle Sisters and French chanson - along with enough hints of Young Marble Giant’s modernist folk abstraction to satisfy longtime fans. ‘The Devil Laughs’ is a small masterpiece of pure expression.
Tracklisting: Tidy Away / Day Must Come / It Goes Like This / Love Hangover / The Devil Laughs / Sky Over Water / Fighting To Lose / Untitled #2 / Come To Me Nancy / Head In A Song / Singing Out / Tidy Away (Reprise)