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All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace by Brave Captain

Music // Jim // 13th September 2004

Brave Captain is Martin Carr, who was the creative force behind arguably the greatest, indie-est indie band of my ridiculous student youth, The Boo Radleys. For those of you not up to speed: after some early Creation releases they released the sublime, but mad masterpiece that was Giant Steps. Then they unleashed pop behemoth Wake Up Boo!, went a bit miserable with C’Mon Kids and were probably on all sorts of drugs by the time of Kingsize.

The Boo Radleys split up in 1999 to, in the language of press releases, pursue other projects.
Since the release of the first Brave Captain mini-album (The Fingertip Saint Sessions Volume 1) towards the end of 2000 Mr Carr has been fairly prolific, banging out new music at fairly constant rate.

Brave Captain: Songwriting Genius, Robotic Overlord, Messy Bedroom

The first releases contained some great inventive stuff with a slightly sixties, psychedelic edge to proceedings. The odd brass/string section was thrown in to round things out with BC now taking on the singing duties that his mate Sice had provided in The Boo Radleys. Despite the music carrying a vaguely political or chaotic edge, it was a fair way from some of the more bonkers moments on the albums of old; more studied, more mature.

So in some ways it was a relief when the subsequent EPs and album Advertisements For myself appeared. Although the genius songwriting and traditional elements were still in place on the epic I Was A Teenage Death Squad or the catchy My Mind Pictures, the mad experimental aspect of Brave Captain had seemed to return. The Boo Radleys, despite the “Indie” label had produced some fairly diverse, genre-bending material (particularly on Giant Steps and Kingsize) and BC delved back into the virtual world of computerfied music to produce a truly eclectic album. Tracks like Down Between and the (fairly frightening by the end) Rod’s Got One were an indication of things to come.

I’ve read that the move towards electronic music and laptop performance was brought about by economic necessity as well as changing artistic direction. If this is true, then I can only suggest that a few more musicians should be forced to scale down a bit as I would definitely suggest that the latest and most electronic Brave Captain material is probably the best.

The I Am A Lion EP (which was bought via the post) included the scathing, yet superb I Pledge Resistance To The Flag with a Vocodered BC, slating Blair and Bush by taunting “We are the bombs that you should be afraid of”

The following album All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace is a much more compact record than Advertisements For Myself and is less sprawling in style.

A number of the tracks mix a bit of acoustic strumming and plaintive singing with darker, looped elements. A good example is Every Word You Sound, a wheezing, groaning introduction gives way to a gorgeous acoustic interlude before we descend into a big intricate keyboard finale.

Interestingly, the bouncy single Good Life sees BC turn into a Vince Clarke type svengali as Sice is dragged back for what is probably the most pop track on the album.

Lyrically, things are not quite as overtly political as Advertisements For Myself or the Corporation Man EP, no Noam Chomsky samples here, although flags and countries are slagged off a bit, as they probably should be.

A number of the songs seem to demonstrate a gradual transformation from the organic to the technical, the title track and Flow Machines are good examples of this. At the same time BC himself seems to be undergoing some kind of Tetsuo inspired transformation from delicately voiced scouser to some kind of robotic musical overlord. The new robot BC takes centre stage on Metamorphic Rocks and chips in to Little Giant before leading us all astray with the huge sounding and, quite frankly, threatening Weaponized.

It starts with some uncomfortable rapid noises that pan from side to side like a saw going through your head and don’t go away once the track kicks in. Everything pounds along while we are reminded (I think) that singing robots will only lead to trouble. Then it really kicks off like a cross between Aphex Twin and The KLF. Marvellous in every sense.

Probably the best thing about this album is the fact that you can get it in the shops, there are still copies floating around in my local Fopp, get in there now!

Brave Captain Links....

Brave Captain Web Site

Cool site with news, message boards, downloads and an associated shop where you can download tracks and buy t-shirts etc.

Giant Steps by the Boo Radleys

A whole load of information on one of the greatest albums going

NME Brave Captain page

Might be some odds and sods here, probably not though

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Information on the film I referred to before, freaky.