whisperinandhollerin review
Yaay! Here’s a review of ‘Monopole’ by Tim Peacock for whisperinandhollerin. I’m very flattered! š
“I tend to blanch at the phrase āone hit wonderā, but sadly poor old Jyoti Mishra (aka WHITE TOWN) will probably always be identified with his against-run-of-play hit single āYour Womanā and itsā attendant decent-selling album āWomen in Technologyā released on Chrysalis/ EMI in 1997.
There again, while Mishra may not have dented the charts since, I doubt his fifteen minutes in the spotlight have actually affected him in too adverse a fashion. The reason the āhitā seemed such a surprise at the time was because he came from a staunchly developed DIY background, so rather than chase his tail desperately trying for the elusive āmassiveā follow up, heās simply said āta-raā to the majors, retreated to his own space and continued to release relevant new material in his own time. Lest we not forget that while his last two albums (āPeek and Pokeā and āDonāt Mention the Warā) may not have been āheadlineā releases, they both garnered plenty of critical acclaim.
Released on his own Bzangy imprint, his latest, āMonopoleā has plenty to recommend it too. Breezy and eminently personal, none of itsā 11 tracks busts the 4-minute mark, while sonically the menu is almost wholly pop-oriented and highly immediate. The fact Mishra is in the process of making a video for every track suggests heās confident many of these little blighters could do the biz on the single front.
Brisk synth-popper āCut out My Heartā gets us underway, though the defiantly hurt lyric (ācut out my heart and throw that shit away/ Iām not gonna use it after todayā) goes resolutely against the Moroder-like thrum of the music. Like most of what follows, it simply breezes past and while Mishra can sometimes veer a little close to tweeness for my liking (āMissing Her Againā, the Jack PeƱate-ish āSheās a Lot Like Youā), tracks like the pissed-off, almost Mary Chain-ish attack of āHave I Gone Too Far?ā, acoustic confessional āI Donāt Want to Fall in Love Againā and the wonderfully evocative, OST-style āTheme for Turku Central Stationā are all bracing and memorable on their own terms.
While it would be easy to suggest Jyoti Mishra came out of nowhere and went straight back there, āMonopoleā again reminds us that he has actually long since cracked the art of longevity and gives not a fig which way the fickle winds of the zeitgeist are blowing. Long may he retain his uncompromising stance.”
