- Because I know nothing, I found a review somewhere and, having read that this was a sort of Sinatra, Roxy Music kind of thing, I thought, that’s for me, and well I couldn’t have been more wrong. Strays Don’t Sleep are Neilson Hubbard and M. Ryan, who have had some solo work but come together for this, and write and play and sing (or provide vox as it says on the liner notes).
First up the music is very good, like Mr Spiggott’s right leg I like it very much, I could listen to the tinkly music all day while I went about some mindless task, unfortunately it come with vox. It may be that the vocalist has that kind of croaky voice but to me it sounds like it’s put on for the sake of a soulful moody significance absent from the moon/ june lyrics. The first track that registers is Night Is Still that’s four tracks in, then Spirit Fingers, the last three tracks are okay, or maybe I’ve become immune. Some of the lyrics are just utter tosh and I can’t be bothered to find them.
This album is a two-disc thing and on the second disc you get some films to go with the music; some of the films are by Hubbard and Ryan, as if there were no end to their opinion of their talent. This presumably is where the Roxy Music link comes in, as the films are very ‘art school graduation project’. Pretty Girl is a bit voyeuristic, being someone getting ready to go out, she has 69 tattooed on her back or maybe it’s a yin and yang thing. In one of the films a girl with a pierced face raised her hand to brush away a stray hair and I flinched because I thought she’d knock the studs out. Cars And History takes the voyeurism of Pretty Girl and takes it through centre as they might say in college football, it’s a nice girl does swinging/ prostitution story and was the only one I watched right through; I’m not proud of myself, it was only soft-porn but I felt a bit distressed and a bit dirty.
I don’t know whom this kind of thing will appeal to, maybe Hubbard and Ryan’s friends, maybe young girls of a kind I can’t even begin to imagine. There is better music than this around but it’s a free country.
