Noonday Underground
Self-assembly
M21 2000

Wow, how fantastic is this? Part northern soul (which I can tell you either because I’m dead trendy or because there’s a picture saying ‘Wigan Casino’ on the disc) and part David Holmes-type muso rambling, with a bit of Goldfrapp sneaking in around the edges (which isn’t copying, since this was recorded at the same time or before). Basically it’s a bloke called Simon Dine, who seems to be your bedroom music obsessive, madly collecting sounds and samples, plus the amazing vocals of Daisy Martey, who sounds like Dusty Springfield or someone on Sixties Motown, fantastically powerful, yet never losing expressiveness even when she’s belting it out.

Can you find me a better song than ‘London’ from the last three years? I don’t believe you can. There’s a lovely Sixties finger-clicking groove to it and Daisy sings her heart out with great lyrics about the fickle ways of the music business in a way that somehow manages huge drama and poignancy. Top marks, too, for use of the word ‘zeitgeist’ in a lyric. ‘When you Leave’ is equally exciting: a great big soulful complaint about departing lovers.

I suppose, if pushed, I’d have to admit that nothing else hits quite the same highs. This is where the David Holmes comparison holds up, I suppose. They all sound like little sonic experiments along the lines of, this is a good shuffling, hip-swinging beat, it sounds like it’s on Ready Steady Go or whatever; let’s see if we can be a summery girl group on this one; wow, what a great retro shimmery sound, etc. Lots of instrumentals which will probably show up as incidental music on BBC2 before you know it. (Not that you can blame any band for that.)

This was a re-release because they got so little notice taken of them the year before. Now they seem to have had a bit more press. I hope they sell some records; in a just world they’d sell stacks.