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Mekons — Deserted (March 29, 2019)UK FLAG                                                                                                               Mekons — Deserted (March 29, 2019) Mekons — Deserted (March 29, 2019)■  Opět odhaluje hloubku jejich fantazie. Filmové a širokoúhlé v jejich zvukovém rozsahu a s bezprostředností živé kapely je Deserted tím nejlepším Mekoncem. Je to písničkářská hudba naštvaných lidí, rozčarovaných, ztracených a toužících být nalezeni, ale jen podle jejich podmínek. O jejich prvním albu napsal PopMatters: „Jura je velmi blízko k dokonalosti a v jednu chvíli je radostně odlehčená a v další nesnesitelně tragická, což z ní dělá jedno z nejlepších vydání od kteréhokoli umělce za nějakou dobu.“ A UNCUT k tomu přidal: „Prostřednictvím těchto folkových, venkovských a gaelských inspirovaných stránek prochází vzduch svobody a omlazení, ať už je materiál hravě divadelní nebo strašidelně skutečný.“ 
Konečně k aktuálnímu albu: „Deserted je první formální studiové album po osmi letech od legendárního folk~punkového kolektivu Mekons. Na oslavu jeho vydání a jejich nadcházejícího turné pro nás Jon Langford a Tom Greenhalgh rozepsali album po stopách.“ — Annie Fell, Talkhouse Associate Editor
■  Jon Langford: „Nejsme žádní poustevníci. Nepřišli jsme sem, abychom dali hlavy dohromady na venkov. Nepřišli jsme sem bez předpojatých nápadů. Přišli jsme sem velmi málo připraveni. Jsme uprostřed turné a platíme si to sami, takže si za to můžeme jen sami. Toto místo tě brousí. Okamžité zaměření na drobné věci, které dávají naprostý smysl, jak šílenství řinčí za vzdáleným obzorem. Půjčte si do hloubky a vyzbrojte se. Počkejte, až přijde déšť. Přines mi moji červenou vestu, aby mě posádka neviděla krvácet! Přines mi moje hnědé manšestrové kalhoty ...“
■  „Vítězná připomínka toho, jak si Mekoni vůbec získali naši věrnost.“ — Magnet Magazine
Formed: in Leeds, England in 1977
Location: Leeds, UK
Album release: March 29, 2019
Record Label: Bloodshot Records
Duration:     42:01
Tracks:
1. Lawrence Of California   4:37
2. Harar 1883   3:12
3. In The Sun / The Galaxy Explodes   4:55
4. How Many Stars?   4:02
5. In The Desert   4:50
6. Mirage   4:55
7. Weimar Vending Machine / Priest?   6:02
8. Andromeda   4:27
9. After The Rain   5:01
Personnel:
■  Susie Honeyman: violin
■  Sally Timms: vocals
■  Eris Bellis AKA Rico Bell: vocals, accordion keys
■  Lu Edmonds: Saz, Cumbus
■  Jon Langford: guitar, vocals
■  Steve Goulding: vocals, drums
■  Tom Greenhalgh: guitar, vocals
■  Dave Trumfio AKA The Baron: bass, vocals
Description:
⇔  This legendary group from Leeds, have written contemporary music history for the last 40 years as radical innovators of both first generation punk and insurgent roots music. Their new album was recorded in the desert environs of Joshua Tree, California and is drenched with widescreen, barbed~wire atmosphere and hard~earned (but ever amused) defiance.
⇔  The return of one of the planet’s most essential rock & roll bands.
⇔  When punk exploded in London, fast and brash and full of fury, up in Leeds the Mekons came blinking into the light at a much slower pace. Singles like “Where Were You” and “Never Been in a Riot” (both from1978) fractured punk’s outlaw myth with the ordinariness of real life. During the next decade, as country singers donned cowboy hats and slid into the stadiums, the Mekons celebrated the music’s rough, raw beginnings and tender hearts with the Fear and Whiskey album (1985) and went on to demolish rock narratives with Mekons Rock’n’Roll (1989). For more than four decades they’ve been a constant contradiction, an ongoing art project of observation, anger and compassion, all neatly summed up in the movie Revenge of the Mekons, which has ironically brought an upsurge in their popularity around the US as new audiences discovers their shambling splendour. And now the caravan continues with Deserted, their first full studio album in eight years.
⇔  And desert is an apt word. This time there’s an emphasis on texture and sounds, a sense of space that brings a new, widescreen feel to their music, opening up songs that surge like clarion calls, like the album’s opening track, “Lawrence of California.”
⇔  “We were recording at the studio of our bass player, Dave Trumfio,” Langford recalls. “It’s just outside Joshua Tree National Park. Seeing Tom [Greenhalgh, the group’s other original member] wandering in that landscape looked like a scene from Lawrence of California.’ And then, ‘Wait a minute, there’s a song in that.’”
⇔  The band arrived with no songs written, only a few ideas exchanged by email between Langford and Tom Greenhalgh, the group’s other original member.
⇔  “Things emerged. At one point we had a sheet with a few words written here and there. Everyone added bits and by the time it was finished, it only needed a few changes to be able to sing. Somewhere else there are two lyrics sung over each other.”
⇔  “Even during the mixing, Dave pushed us into some new sonic territory all the way through,” Langford recalls.
⇔  The tweaking and effects take them about as far as they can go from 2016’s Existentialism, which saw all eight members crowded around a single microphone in a tiny theatre in Red Hook, New York, recording live in front of an audience. Deserted offers a different kind of freedom. Of space and stars and wide~open land. Of possibilities and past. But mainly of the future.
⇔  It’s fresh territory. But that’s always been what attracts the Mekons. They show that four decades doesn’t translate to becoming a heritage act. Instead, they keep experimenting, from the jagged, spaced throb that powers “Into The Sun,” revolving around the drums of Steve Goulding and Trumfio’s bass to the barely controlled anarchy that’s “Mirage,” or a countrified homage to “Andromeda.” Everything is possible, everything is permitted. 41 years after that first single they’re still moving. Still defiant, still laughing, still joyful. Never underestimate some happy anarchy, and never write off the Mekons.
⇔  Deserted, perhaps, but they’re back to tip the world on its axis. Again.
REVIEWS:
by Stephen M. Deusner ⌊APRIL 6 2019⌋ Score: 7.2
⇔  https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/mekons-deserted/
By Mekons | July 10, 2019:
 https://www.talkhouse.com/a-guide-to-mekons-deserted/
ROLLING STONE/By WILL HERMES;  Score: ★★★★ ⇔   https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-the-mekons-deserted-814684/
BERTHOLD SELIGER:
⇔  https://www.bseliger.de/kuenstler/mekons
Bandcamp: https://deserted.bandcamp.com/album/deserted
Label: https://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/deserted

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