Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Ron Gallipoli: 16000 Dead Pigs in the Huangpu River
In the other real world Ron Gallipoli is Sam Bradford who was the singer in New Zealand's Sharpie Crows, but here he nails down some droll, pleasingly weird, socio-political lo-fi electronica-cum-light industrial post-punk.
It might be all over quickly -- nine songs in 34 minutes -- but he crams a lot of information (satirical comment) and sounds (nods towards bedroom-solo Chris Knox, what could be Asian field recordings in the manner of Jack Body, bent pop) into that time.
Not everything works (Getting Paid is a rather broad-brush social comment which stumbles on too long) but this is at its strongest in that Asia-framed 16000 Dead Pigs in the Huangpu River, the hypnotic two-minute industrial grind of Birdsong and Birthscene which opens like something from This Heat by eases into oddball crooner mode (but listen to the lyrics).
Ancestors is a surreptitiously and subversively pointed statement over a slinky and cheap groove, and Elephant Drum works a similar bottom end to almost funky effect. It's almost a pop song and deserves to be heard in that context.
There's a darkly funny piece entitled Fonterra and also the too-short Fascist Kyoto constructed from electronica, samples and cut-ups. It's very smart.
So this not so much an odd one -- given we can identify a number of prior reference points, even if he hasn't intended them -- but a fascinating excusion off the main highway into the romance of dark alleyways between factories and abandoned warehouses which offer a strange music of their own.
You can hear a whole bunch of Ron Gallipoli music here and this album is available on iTunes, Amazon etc
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