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Martin Inghardt (Sweden) – Kukliv (single)

Blur were happy to content themselves with ‘Parklife’ but Martin Inghardt takes his observations several stages further with ‘Cock life’, which is the literal translation of ‘Kukliv’ or so Mr Google tells me while trying not to blush.

Actually it’s good to get down and dirty every so often with some no-nonsense lyrics and that’s certainly the case here with this piece from Martin, the front man with the bands The Animal Five (I can’t imagine a beastly night out with them) and more sedately Canary Islands.

I’ve studied those lyrics in some detail and I still haven’t a clue what it’s all about. Fortunately a press release informs me that it’s “a Strokes-smelling pop song about how life is a dick in one way and sometimes how it’s a dick in another way.”

Double dick, then. In out, in out, you shake it all about.

That might explain choice lines like “Flirting like young ones with teeth and tongue,” “Fuck boy life style forever and ever amen” and something about being both the dinosaurs and the asteroid that finished them off and snakes leaving the forest for the city and biting the apple.

The promotional slogan Kukliv ut nu (Cock Life out now) seems strangely appropriate to the content.

(Mr Google says enough already).

As those lyrics are so mysterious, I’ll focus on the music. I like it.

Try to imagine a meeting of Altered Images (think ‘Happy Birthday’) and a New Order bass line, complemented by a disarming vocal delivery that could come from a TV advert for washing up liquid and you’ll be on the right lines.

Martin’s been round the block a bit. The Animal Five was inaugurated “87 years ago” with him as singer, drummer and sometime poet. Now he moves belatedly into solo work and we wish him all the luck with his “seasick pop”.

He seems to be a really interesting character. The last line of his artist introduction on Spotify describes how he likes to eat French bistro food and drink wine on Sundays – sacré bleu! – but also likes to ‘pop Molly’ (take Ecstasy, a phrase I haven’t heard in years) and dance around his living room on Wednesdays.

No dicking around there then.

(For those that follow ‘Benidorm’ on British TV doesn’t he look like hairdresser Troy from the Blow ‘n Go salon after a severe haircut?)

‘Kukliv’ is out now on the label Så Länge Skutan Kan Gå Records.

Find him on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/martininghardt

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slinghardt/

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