Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Somewhere in the bowels of the Earth resides hope that has been lost, a hope that brings together the avant-garde and the willingness to take risks, to tackle the slice by slice dissection we face of our time and the way we use it; it is the hope of the scream, of the passion that conquers the disinterest, and one that Rick Senley captures in his guise as I Am The Man With The St. Tropez Tan with his typical abundant flourish.

The Tattooed Aunts and Mice On Speed is perhaps darker than anything Rick Senley in either of his musical alter egos has put out. Whether as Music For Voyeurs or as I Am The Man With The St. Tropez Tan, the collection of ten different sound-scapes is more visceral, attacking, barbed, it edges into the zone of discomfort and demanding; and yet it is a demand that is not unwelcome, it is a sense of discomfort that cannot be approached and handled and despite the visceral sense of the music, it is one that comes across with beauty and sensuality.

It is in effect a marriage of music, between the mind and the scream it perhaps wants to let out, a link between the cerebral passions encompassed by Edvard Munch’s celebrated The Scream and the desire for change that we seek as the world becomes ever more tainted with the sound of those who lack love, compassion and who crave nothing more than destruction. It is to the genius spark that resides in us all that Rick Senley appeals, to urge us to scream, to tackle the noise of the silent haters whose seething, wriggling mess of so called high moral standards shakes their heads when anyone dares to produce art that they love.

In tracks such as It’s Brutal Out Here, He Even Freed The Jews, August Christmas and Killing Seals, I Am The Man With The St. Tropez Tan reaches down into the dark and comes up with an abundance of light, shaded from the glare of positive endeavour for too long, the light takes a moment to realise it has been let loose, and yet the instant it does, it pours like liquid gold over the serenity of the Serengeti, a new dawn, a sense of peace that has followed the scream and the banishment of those that caused the scream to build in the first place.

For the fans of Rick Senley in the guise of I Am The Man With The St. Tropez Tan, The Tattooed Aunts and Mice On Speed is a different offering, one that is not afraid to go deep, fight dirty and hold the head of the vanquished high above the crowds; it is also sublime for all that is worth and one that does Rick Senley a huge credit.

Ian D. Hall