Post Pulp he moved to Paris and followed his various passions such as ‘outsider’ art, Scott Walker, Leonard Cohen, and Paris legend Serge Gainsbourg. He also wrote occasional songs for the likes of fellow Parisians Marianne Faithfull and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
In 2006 his debut solo album Jarvis appeared and he also began to give a series of lectures called ‘Saying The Unsayable’ about lyric writing. Somehow he found time to write new material for Further Complications and go to Chicago to record it. All of this hopefully justifies my, perhaps inflated, anticipation on playing this new release for the first time.
Jarvis Cocker, just like his lectures seem to confirm, has always had something to say. When he returned to song-writing in time for the G8 Summit his song “****s Are Still Running The World” became a download giant.
Further Complications opens promisingly with the title track. The very first line has Jarvis reflecting, ‘in the beginning there was nothing and to be honest that suited me just fine.’ It’s rockier and somewhat harsher than Jarvis, and is awash with Albini sound styling. It does, however, still possess those characteristic lyrical couplings we grew to expect in the past.
“Leftovers” opens brilliantly with, ‘I met her in a museum of paleontology and I’ll make no bones about it, I said if you wish to study dinosaurs, I know a specimen who’s interest is undoubted’. When he pleads, ‘help yourself to leftovers’, he speaks up for every middle aged guy who has ever lusted after a far younger female.
This is more like it, and we are suddenly on something of a roll. “I Never Said I Was Deep” further explores the same area. It’s a theme that crops up time and again on tracks such as this, “Angela”, “Leftovers”, You’re In My Eyes”, “F**kingsong”, and “Slush”. The line, ‘I’m not looking for a relationship, just a willing receptacle’ will no doubt provoke an interesting response, depending on where you’re coming from, so to speak.
Then again, of course, it’s a subject that crops up every eight seconds or so in any healthy guys mind. It’s Jarvis saying the unsayable with a middle aged anxiety ridden twist. Yep, I can identify with this album after all.
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