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Tutt'altro che scalfito dal tempo è invece l'approccio lucido e problematico di Charles Hayward alle forme e alle valenze della canzone in ambito rock, con gli intenti critici, oppositivi e discordi dichiarati già in This Heat e ora nuovamente assunti dal suo più recente progetto Abstract Concrete, un quintetto con Agathe Max, Otto Willberg, Roberto Sassi e Yoni Silver. Attenzione a non scalfire troppo l'album dovrà prestare semmai chi vorrà procurarsene un esemplare - ce ne sono 51 - contenuto, in provocatoria guisa brutalista, dentro un blocco di autentico cemento. L'idea è venuta a The state51 Conspiracy.
Charles Hayward, co-founder of This Heat and Camberwell Now, recently entered his eighth decade, but instead of slowing down, he’s actually stepping the pace up dramatically. After a string of sensational gigs in the UK and the US as part of This Is Not This Heat, a newly revitalised and inspired Charles, formed the band Abstract Concrete in 2019. Combining sweet chamber pop hooks with dubwise bass, plaintive Balearic guitar licks, and a blend of folk and jazz-informed post punk, accompanied by lyrics that bend from the political to depressed toilet cleaning apparatus, Abstract Concrete follows a continuum of such melodic art school innovators as The Kinks, Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt and Penguin Cafe Orchestra, as well as Hayward’s own experimental post punk past, all the while nodding to a childhood spent listening to folk and pop. The lyrics are, he explains, “a reaction to the times we’re living in” - often reflections on the political climate of today, the impact of Covid and the changing role of music itself, with the songs being composed and structured in unusual ways to emphasise these concerns.
https://state51.greedbag.com/abstract-concrete
https://youtu.be/9nKFJPgTSa0
https://youtu.be/z_tMZ33uQy0