Album of songs by
Bill Bailey, a musical comedian that had been touring clubs and festivals for
seven years with this multi-award-winning material before it's release. Long-awaited is
mildly understated.
Surreal is probably the best way to describe Bill's music, mixing pairs of musical styles for comedy effect, such as well-known classical pieces with the kind of cheeky Cockney piano riffs that made Chas and Dave so popular(ish). The album highlights, however, go to the live favourites Insect Nation (a fear-of-the-future sci-fi warning about humans becoming slaves to insects and featuring the lyric "Spiders are not insects, but in a war they'd probably side with the insects") and the prog-rock classic, Leg Of Time.
Track listing:
- Insect Nation
- Gwydion & The Druid - Chapter 1
- Richard Clayderman plays Three Blind Mice
- Unisex Chip Shop (Tribute to Billy Bragg)
- Scooby Doo
- Sirens
- Jean-Michel Jarre
- Hats Off To The Zebras (celebrating Bryan Adams)
- Phillip Glass plays Pop Goes The Weasel
- Foxhunting
- Tom Waits plays Three Blind Mice
- Leg Of Time
- Classical Cockney
- Chaucer Pubbe Gagge
- Medieval Porn
- Gwydion & The Druid - Chapter 2
- Doctor Qui
- Cockney Medley
- Beautiful Ladies (in honour of Chris De Burgh)
- Gwydion & The Druid - Chapter 47
It was recorded in just twelve hours during his 2000 tour of the UK in a studio in Hammersmith, West London while, according to rumours, Chris De Burgh worked in the adjacent studio, spending a whole four days putting his own album together.