UPC 809236143310

"The Jazz Butcher was always something of a unique vehicle, a sort of musical dune buggy - it interweaves the influence of The Velvet Underground & Syd Barrett with the new wave energies of the day and leaves us all richer for looking in" Pete Kember / Spacemen 3 // The re-release of 'Last Of The Gentlemen Adventurers' mark s the 30th anniversary of The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy. Originally limited to just 1000 copies only Fire Records will be releasing the album worldwide for the first time to coincide with a run of tour dates to be announced. // 'With blood from an interminable improv on his cleaver ... people say he uses every last bit of a slaughtered solo clarinet except its squeal ... the Jazz Butcher, one of this threadbare island's greatest living songwriters, herein purveys his choicest cuts. All left to hang as part of their extensive maturation process, melodies so tender that they're falling off the bone, a gamey sweetness in the lyrics, this sumptuous salmagundi has the flavour of a signature dish, something left till last. A work that speaks from a hard-earned perspective and means every word of it, Last of the Gentleman Adventurers is a delightfully ill-humoured reassessment of contemporary culture and the dwindling amount of room remaining for a gentleman adventurer within it. From the atavistic primate yearnings for a vanished jungle-land in 'Animals' to the elegiac message-in-a-bottle bobbing on an eerie Californian surf in 'Shakey', what we're offered is a scuffed and well-stamped passport to the gone world, stained with Tokay, singed by oval cigarettes you'll never see again. The fatalistic Gallic shrug of 'Tombe dans les pommes' lifts a dismissive brow at life's vicissitudes, while 'Count Me Out' speaks of the dignified withdrawal from a situation that's no longer either interesting or acceptable