Lord Cut-Glass, the solo incarnation of ex-Delgado Alun Woodward, takes his maiden album bow for Chemikal Underground on June 22nd.…
Sometimes bashful, occasionally imbued with curmudgeonly bluster, and yet always lifted by humorous life learned truisms, Lord Cut-Glass strikes a dashing figure of musically inventive bravado. Galloping percussion, waltzes and marches, promenades of male and female harmony, delicate and serene creations punctuated by casual profanity and shot through with brazenly hilarious words-to-the-wise.
It is an album comprising one man’s refined grasp of the musical form, an idiosyncratic pursuit that’s unmistakably in the lineage of independent Scottish music. With its beguiling application of eclectic even anachronistic styles, sharply recalled sense and scene, it is the product of a febrile mind… “At the start of recording I got Scarlet Fever and stayed in bed for ages, reading my girlfriends books.” Explains Woodward of Lord Cut-Glass’ creation, “I read Under Milk Wood in a feverish state and decided I would call myself after one of the characters”.
Woodward’s solo project has grown incrementally over the 4 years since The Delgados disbanded. In between “non rock n roll” spots of gardening on his allotment, doses of scarlet fever and work on Chemikal Underground releases – including those of Aidan Moffat and The Phantom Band – the moniker ‘Lord Cut-Glass’ has made fleeting appearances on Chemikal’s own Ballads Of The Book project and the compilation Worried Noodles.
“Musically I started writing songs with the idea of being in a band with a couple of other people. I asked them and they said they didn't want to, so I thought fuck it I'll do it all myself.”
And so with typically casual defiance Lord Cut-Glass’ debut was recorded at the label’s own studio Chem 19 with former Delgados drummer Paul Savage on the skins, and Woodward himself writing and arranging the parts for an integral band of classical musicians from across Glasgow.
“If Lord Cut-Glass was a political leader he’d be more dictator than democrat: more Charlemagne than Chirac” explains Woodward, and so perhaps we should leave it to the man himself to explain the nuanced romance and oft-exasperated observations within Lord Cut-Glass………
1) EVEN JESUS COULDN’T LOVE YOU - Some people are rotters plain and simple. You have every material object daddy can buy but daddy doesn't buy you love, so do you go and love everyone to make up for it? No, you become a total 100% dickface.
2) LOOK AFTER YOU WIFE - As an unmarried man I can say it "Men look after your wives" we need to look after each other. I like that this song seems so old fashioned and paternalistic, and somehow it seems anachronistic that we should look after each other. I wanted the song to sound like a 50's American housewife hoovering…
3) HOLY FUCK - About a person who was great and never realised it… I love people who are amazing and don't realise it.
4) I AM A GREAT EXAMPLE TO THE DOGS - About unflinching loyalty, never turning your back on someone. I was listening to Astor Piazzolla and liked the idea of having a tango feel in the middle section…
5) MONSTER FACE - This is about moments when you have that clarity that sometimes your life lacks: punching a tormentor so hard their nose explodes over your roll and chips, that kind of thing.
6) YOU KNOW - I have a huge fondness for horses, hence their starring role on the cover. Musically, this has a dose of the Western about it; the last bus or indeed stolen car from the last chance saloon, gangsters and Lithuanian trafficked prostitutes escaping and finding redemption, love and freedom.
7) BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR - Not actually lyrics but almost a direct quote; at times, upon reflection, I am not the nicest man.
8) PICASSO - Surely I wasn't the only boy who spent time and energy persuading a girl not to become a nun? I didn't succeed. I wanted the song to jog along like the 15 year old me.
9) A PULSE - I remember telling someone stories from my childhood and I was expecting serious sympathy and hard knock credibility. Instead they told me stories I would rather not have heard. But the point to the song is that you can get through really fucking rotten times and get past bad people. I wanted it to have a feel of old industry, hence the colliery brass.
10) BIG TIME TEDDY - Some people are right arseholes, one minute they are your mate the next they think they’re Daddy Warbucks.
11) TOOT TOOT - Looking back at the moment when you grow up and seize control. Like carousel music, waltz strings, Spanish guitar accordions and clarinets.