The last single set of CD/7” vinyl, Petals Fresh From Road Kill was a collection of his best known songs pulled from his live act.

The CD versions of ‘Lucky 6’, ‘J-For Julian Sleeps’, ‘Matilda V’ confirms the suspicion I had when I saw him six months ago in Camden but if anything ‘Lucky 6’ is scarier than I remember.

The vinyl version has a further two tracks, both equally imponderable. The cover has been individually coloured in is a crayon spiral design. Apparently Lupen did all 500 himself! Also check the ‘Gallery’ page of his home page, a budding Don Van Vliet by the looks of things.

You can hear the new forthcoming single, ‘Halloween’, from his Myspace site (see links below). I suppose the subject matter suits Crooks’ own Tim Burton leanings and we find an increase in production budget. A string quartet and a bass clarinet join him on acoustic guitar and his usual confrontational barbed lyrics. It’s even meaner than ‘Lucky 6’! It took Elvis Costello years to get into string quartets and Lupen has managed it on only his second release.

On the b-side ‘Phantom, My Friend And You’, the guitar is replaced by piano and we seem to be in a church chorus thing with heavy breathing. It starts with the sound of an old fashioned typewriter as if to tell us a story, “We are spooks, the almost unstoppable, middle class Christians with filth on our mind.” It’s one of those tracks that’ll leave you scratching.

It looks like the next “acoustic genius” may have already moved on from the folk club in the upstairs room of the pub. Lupen Crook will have a large feature in NME next week and the Daily Mirror (Friday 28th) with be reviewing ‘Halloween’. It will be interesting to see what they say, but either way, get to hear Lupen Crook and get the knives out for those pumpkins.

Reviewed: ‘Halloween’ 7” Tracklisting: (Tap’n’Tin) Cat. No. tapntin 005-7 (Release date 31st of October 2005)
A Halloween B Phantom, My Friend And You
Reviewed: ‘Petals Fresh From Road Kill’ 7” Tracklisting: (Tap’n’Tin) Cat. No. tapntin 004-7
A1 Lucky 6, B1 Matthew’s Magpie, B2 The Murderbirds
CD5 Tracklisting: (Tap’n’Tin) Cat. No. tapntin 004CD
1 Lucky 6 (3:38), 2 J-For Julian Sleeps (2:40), 3 Matilda V (2:20)

Links:
www.lupencrook.co.uk
www.myspace.com/lupen_crook
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