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Luke Haines - Adventures In Dementia EP

It’s safe to say that The Auteurs completely passed me by when they were a going concern. Head honcho Luke Haines’ ability to coin a noticeable album title or two managed to catch my eye with Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry but it wasn’t until 2011s 9½ Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling Of The 1970s And Early '80s that I took the plunge and gave the man a listen. Definitely one of my better music-related decisions of recent years.

With Adventures In Dementia Haines crams such elements of the British experience as Skinner & Baddiel, singing Jerusalem at the rugby, caravan holidays and Mark E. Smith into six tracks that are a joy to listen to again and again. His loving chronicles of nostalgia for a myriad examples of UK culture from the last 40+ years, albeit it's doubtful he actually misses football violence, bring to mind the works of Iain Sinclair (a link I may have made previously).

The country punk of opening track 'Caravan Man' tools along at a pace no caravan has ever safely been pulled at and you can imagine the protagonists of Sightseers happily having it on repeat as they drive around on their killing spree. With a total running time of only around 15 minutes this is a perfectly formed example of the EP format. Where many acts would have one main song and fill the space out with pointless remixes of the same or equally pointless cover versions Haines has crafted a gem that hopefully heralds the delivery of a new full length work later in the year.     

Adventures In Dementia is available from amazon.

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