My intermittent fandom of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynki has been rather hindered over the years by the fact that their music only really makes sense to me when I’m in the countryside. And sadly, I am rarely in the countryside. Relocate their peculiarly loveable folk-rock rollicking to the world of concrete, deadlines, jobs, rent and clock-watching, and their appeal fades to dust in seconds.

So I guess it makes sense that this solo album of peculiarly loveable piano-rock rollicking from Euros Childs (the first work of his I’ve been driven to check out in some years) continues to concern itself with rural - or at least suburban - concerns, even as his expanded horizons as a song-writer allow him to put a somewhat darker and more tormented spin on the wine-sipping, bohemian idyll of his hero, the late Kevin Ayers.

So basically, ‘Situation Comedy’ is sort of rural, middle class counterpoint to The Kinks’ masterpiece ‘Muswell Hillbillies’- a vague, vignettes-from-life type concept album dealing with the joy, sadness and absurdity of a certain unfairly maligned corner of contemporary British life, complete with a song entitled ‘Second Home Blues’, acres of Viv Stanshall-esque whimsy and a verse about a middle-aged woman who bites into a frozen owl believing it to be a piece of cheese.

Like most actual sit-coms, there is a thread of vast, vicious unhappiness running through these songs that is not always immediately obvious, but lurks always. Even the delightful, grin-from-ear-to-ear goofiness of opening cut ‘Tete A Tete’ has Childs reflecting on the discovery of “corpses, beneath my ice rink”; whether metaphorical or literal, it’s an grim aside to find in the midst of a breezy little love song, pre-empting the more explicit miseries and upsets found later on the LP.

But, crucially, there is an equally strong sense of hope here that overcomes cynicism or class-based anger - a dream of a happiness always just around the corner, of dazzling, sun-blessed landscapes and conjugal bliss worthy of the poets. Like Lou Reed or Ray Davies at their best, Childs is able to realise this dream for us just as gracefully as the ugly reality, never sounding condescending or superior as he outlines the multi-faceted tragedies that befall his protagonists as they strive in vain to “do so much more, than just surviving”.

That this is a beautifully composed, arranged and recorded piece of work goes without saying, but y’know - it really is, and such pleasantness helps us glide through subject matter and musical decisions that would be nigh on intolerable in the hands of artists who don’t have quite so much… well, charm, I suppose. Of course there are self-indulgences here - mis-steps and bits that don’t quite work – but that’s exactly as it should be, and there are fewer than you might expect. So if you’ve ever spent quality time with the work of John Cale, or that of the aforementioned Messrs Ayers and Davies, and if you can overcome your kneejerk dismissal of whimsical, piano-led oom-pah for a few minutes, you will, I’m sure, find much nourishment in this rather superb LP. Just don’t try playing it in the city, for god’s sake.

Buy from the lad himself.

Labels: best of 2013, Euros Childs