Artist: Lucky Pierre (Arab Strap)
Title: Pierre's Final Thought - Two Songs by Lucky Pierre
Format: 7" single
Label: Chemikal Underground
Catalogue Number: Lucky1
Year of Release: 2000
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This has been an interesting record to research! Not content with naming his band after a gentleman's sex aid, Aidan Moffat's side project is named after one of the participants in a sexual position that I will let the curious reader discover the particulars of themselves. There is the remote possibility that it was named after an obscure 1960s sexploitation flick directed by Herschel Gordon Lewis, but I feel that hypothesis puts the cart before the horse, as it were.
Side A's track Chloe features a simple, mournful guitar line, looped, and drum machines. It's slow, plods along nicely, and then the kind of voice that would introduce an afternoon radio play or regional news bulletin comes in, describing Chloe as she would describe herself. The drums get heavier at one point, two strummed guitar chords join the loops, then the guitars go, leaving the drums on their own. I think the track would be better without the sample, as you would just have to imagine who Chloe was - I must prefer 'show' to 'tell' , in that regard. Before the record ends there is another sample - this time an american lady's answering machine. Clearly a huge Star Wars fan, she cannot come to the phone because of duties involving saving the federation or some such, and you are invited to leave a message with R2. The more I think about it, the worse it makes me feel.
Which leads nicely into Side B. Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child. Now there's a sentiment - you know it's not going to be a barrel of laughs, this track. As an old spiritual song this has been covered by all and sundry over the years, but here we just get the title, sung operatically by female voice. It loops slowly over a two-chord piano motif, violin accompaniment, and drum machines. All backing instruments cut out about halfway through, and then there is the best gong sample I've ever heard (by which I mean the instrument, not the teapot-obsessed prog band). The gong is repeatedly struck at the end of the vocal line until the track ends a minute or so later. Curiously affecting.
