Wit, liveliness and crackling musical ideas, jumping between global genres with relish – Kirsty MacColl’s third album, Electric Landlady, has all of them. It also has quite the title, as her friend and occasional songwriting partner Johnny Marr writes over e-mail. “We spent a lot of time together [then] hanging out, listening to records late at night and then making our own records during marathon recording sessions. I lived in her flat in Shepherds Bush which is how we came up with ’Electric Landlady’”.
Many collaborations light up this LP. The defiant country swing of All I Ever Wanted was a result of a writing partnership by post, exchanging tapes with American musician Marshall Crenshaw. He Never Mentioned Love, written with The Pogues’ Jem Finer, is a more mature, wry take on Kirsty’s earlier girl group-flavoured pop. The Hardest Word, written with her older brother, Hamish, is also about their late father, the renowned folk singer Ewan, with whom she had a tough relationship.
Pressed up on 180g audiophile vinyl, half speed mastered from the original analogue tapes by Phil Kinrade at AIR studios.