The Dead Company - Oxygen Ft Larry Ludwick

Hear The Track Here

Out of all the artists I have come across over my years on the internet, there are very few who have left lasting impressions. They either had to be really, really good or have some other attribute to recommend them to me for the long term. Scary is the attribute I usually associate with The Dead Company and that's probably the reason why they still stick in my mind. Seriously, a lot of their early tracks are quite some of the most sombre, intense yet strangely beautiful experiences I have had over the last ten years. Not, however, something to play before Grannie and the kids though and - over the years - The Dead Company and changed and morphed more times than Noddy.

Noddy? Who he?

Oxygen isn't at all what I expected from Messrs Bushaway and Luckwick and - I freely admit - it did make me murmur wtf more than once or twice. There again, that is also something I have been doing ever since I first encountered them. Ditching his usual Mad Electronic Scientist white coat, Jon Bushaway this time gets all rootsy by throwing some beats at ya...ohh yeah. Mind you, you couldn't dance to it, unless you were a student who - as we know - can dance to anything so long as it didn't involve rhythm, grace or style.

As you can see, I am studiously ignoring the elephant in the room by doing anything other than reviewing the damn track....

See, its a big, big elephant and I'm still trying to get my mind around it. Essentially this is a track built on drumtracks, a modicum of instruments and not much else. To be sure, the drums are tasty, as are some of the tricks used, but hey drums is drums. A lot of the weight then has to be taken by the vocals; step forward the Man, Larry Ludwick who stands exposed before us as never before. Yes, I know it was bad enough before, but calm down dear, let me finish. Larry takes the part, in the song, of your neighbourhood oxygen dealer whose final words are ' when it has all gone, nobody lives'. Even after continued listening I'm still in two minds about this track, I think because it is a marked departure from what went before, and I already admitted that bias. And, in true scary fashion, I now have the words 'nobody lives' reverberating through my brain. Err, thanks...er...I think.

Seriously experimental experimental, if you know what I mean. Handle with care.