Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Stylus Magazine - Nixey's The Collector
As I suspect I’ve mentioned elsewhere on quite a few occasions, I used to have a rather hefty crush on Sarah Nixey back when I was 16 or so. It was the springtime of Black Box Recorder’s The Facts Of Life album and her voice was everywhere in my head, cold, cutting, smirking—“experimentation, familiarisation; it’s all a nature-walk.” Happy times.
Anyway, BBR ran their course a couple of years ago, and her first solo material sneaked out at the end of last year. It’s rather good, too, in a kind of understated English electro-pop fashion. This is her first time writing her own lyrics, and so the tone is slightly lighter than when she was the mouthpiece for Luke Haines and John Moore (i.e. she doesn’t seem to want to kill anyone). It’s a tale of “a boy who never smiled,” collecting butterflies in order to preserve them behind glass for their own protection. I’d imagine the analogy’s obvious enough.
The chorus is the clincher: “You cast your net and pull me in; you always win this game.” The maturity of tone, the anger and the pity—you don’t get that shit with Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Then again, you could probably dance to Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Score draw, then.
written by William B. Swygart
Anyway, BBR ran their course a couple of years ago, and her first solo material sneaked out at the end of last year. It’s rather good, too, in a kind of understated English electro-pop fashion. This is her first time writing her own lyrics, and so the tone is slightly lighter than when she was the mouthpiece for Luke Haines and John Moore (i.e. she doesn’t seem to want to kill anyone). It’s a tale of “a boy who never smiled,” collecting butterflies in order to preserve them behind glass for their own protection. I’d imagine the analogy’s obvious enough.
The chorus is the clincher: “You cast your net and pull me in; you always win this game.” The maturity of tone, the anger and the pity—you don’t get that shit with Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Then again, you could probably dance to Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Score draw, then.
written by William B. Swygart
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