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I guess it's hard to get through a Mark Robinson review without mentioning Factory Records, so I figured I should go ahead and just get that all over with. ; ) Flin-Flon is the latest project from Sir Teen Beat, and much like his other projects (oh, you know...Unrest, Air Miami, etc...), his love for early 80's new wave/punk is apparent. But, hell, who cares?! I love New Order, and I love this CD. In fact, I got busted for dancing to this CD in line at the Post Office! Actually, I was singing "Virgin Arm" to Mike, but I still got a joke-y scold, "Hey, no dancing in line!" It's just such good stuff.
I've been listening to this pretty steadily since I picked it up, too, and honestly, I kinda hesitated to get it. More acute copacetic readers might remember that Air Miami's "Me Me Me" took a long time to grow on me. Not so with "Boo Boo." (dang, Mark! what's up with these infantile album titles?!) This sucked me right in from the very first track, "Upper Ferry." You hear Mark's minimalist single-string plucking, and then the new-wavey drums kick in, all out of sync. And your thinking, "Is this art-rock or something?" and then the bass comes in and brings it all together. It sent shivers down my back the first time I heard it, and gave me that same thrill I felt when I first heard Unrest almost 10 years ago.
But, so much of this has such an early-New-Order-Factory-Records vibe to it. Listening to "Mistaken Point," you can just see Molly Ringwald in a John Hughes movie, standing there with tears streaming down her face as she accuses Andrew McCarthy. But there are many Mark-elements, too, like in "Jumpers" where he sings about teeth. (He has a thing with teeth, doesn't he?) And he brings back the whole make-out bit in "Floods" with lyrics like, "Feeling you up/ And feeling disappointed" which never fails to make me laugh. And, one last note: the packaging design is pretty damn fab. : ) (j.04.01)
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