Paperjam

The Oliver Twist Manifesto By Luke Haines

Music // Jim // 8th April 2003

Bit of an enigma, Luke Haines, obviously very clever, very witty, somewhat menacing and a bit albino. His dour looking face stares out from the cover of this record like a crimewatch suspect about to do terrible things to a group of children in sports casuals. I get the feeling he was photoshopped in at a later stage so as not to scare the kiddies.
Starting as he means to go on by whispering “this is not entertainment, don’t expect me to entertain you” on the subdued Rock ‘N Roll Communique No 1, we are then informed “people may get hurt” before launching into the catchy yet sinister Oliver Twist.

This is the introduction to the album proper with Haines setting himself up as the new Oliver Twist; he’s back, he’s pissed off and he’s going to tell you about it in some detail.
From there its into the hilarity of the Luke Haines history of modern art where he commends the ideals of the situationists on Never Work and discusses the would-be assassin of Warhol on Mr & Mrs Solanos. Its an F minus for Sarah Lucas however and the penalty for failure chez Haines is the hot lead flush of death by guns.

In the meantime we’ve stopped off to shag Kim Wilde on the jaunty Discomaniabefore ploughing into the short but sweet What Happens When We Die, which sounds like it could be a Morrissey song to me.
Speaking of Morrissey, his alleged uphill skiing colleague Billy Mackenzie pops his clogs on the provocative Christ. A hop skip and a jump through the reference laden The Spook Manifesto and the admirable England VS America and we’re back with Mr Twist and this time he’s got his manifesto with him.

This is far more like Black Box Recorder than the Auteurs and you could imagine Sarah Nixey slipping her crisp vowels over What Happens When We Die and England VS America.
The whole thing is very atmospheric and interesting and has every chance of going on to be criminally overlooked for many years to come. It isn’t quite as good as After Murder Park or England Made Me but a fine record none the less.

For more info on Haines and his marvellous music please check out the scarily comprehensive Luke Haines resource.