Is art still there, when the gallery’s closed? Can you do outsider art when you’re in your house? Is insider art what people do down in London? How come I’m literally not an artist because my art is perceived as shit, and that woman I met once in Leeds is perceived as an artist when her art is literally shit? What the fuck IS art? Can dogs do it?
Thus went my anguished cries, as I projected across the undulating Peak District vistas, from within Bingo towers at the highest point in Sheffield. I had, once again, been given a mere D+ in my art GCSE, at the fifth attempt.
Down in South East Wales, my cries fell not on deaf ears.
You see those that can’t, run record labels. But those who can, form groups called things like The Bug Club. Unsurprisingly it was they who, interrupted by my cries as they were being regaled with the tale of Tilly’s dog Ted’s latest dream, immediately conceived an entire musical sequence that may or may not be in the key of F# (who gives a shit about that?).
The thing is, hailing from the provinces as we all do, we’d never encountered the kind of culture those of you in the capital are lucky enough to enjoy. Thus, not one of The Bug Club nor the Bingo Records politburo knew what to do with this piece of musical art.
Fortunately the vinyl revival - a term completely unknown to us and therefore something we buy into completely free of any cynical baggage - reared its grey, whiskery head and, between telling us how much it liked Sarah Records and comparing Tilly to Angus Young, informed us of a thing called a debut album.
This is one of those.