Mozart's Mini-Mart

Mozart’s Mini Mart, his first LP since On The Hot Dog Streets (2012), is militant and magnificent--as oddsome as dress wearing-era Kevin Rowland, as socially astute as Sleaford Mods, as mythomaniacal as Kanye West.

When You’re Depressed is the jauntiest, most real song about depression since Paint It Black. Zelda’s In The Spotlight recalls genius early Mute made-up childlike electro-pop band Silicon Teens. If you can resist an album that features a glam-stomp titled 12 Knickers On The Line By 3 Chord Fraud you’re a better person than I am.

Concise, even at 17 tracks, it’s a superb trolley-dash through Lawrence’s obsessions, both of the moment--listed among these in the sleevenotes are the twisted synthpop of SOPHIE, Japanese girl-group Perfume and “Side 1 only” of Dollar’s 1979 debut--and longstanding.

A record whose maker has poured his life into it. [Apr 2018, p.95]

The No. 1 slot will continue to elude him, but a strange, dank pop corner remains his and his alone. [Mar 2018, p.26]

This, without question, is the most effervescent and creative album of his extraordinary career.

He may have traveled a long way from the glory days of Felt, or the almost-success of Denim, but even when his life has turned dicey, his gift for cracking amazing jokes in one line, then dropping devastating emotional bombs in the next, has never deserted him. It's out in full force on Mozart's Mini-Mart, and the record is nothing short of a rollicking joyride of eccentric brilliance.