Faceometer, the alter ego of Birmingham troubadour Will Tattersdill, is a studiedly kooky inventor of songs of learned silliness. Think a combination of the sardonic jocularity of Cake’s John McCrea with the forlorn country rock of Grandaddy with a dash of old-timey Kentucky mountain music and you’re beginning to see it. This three-track demo is enormous fun, if ultimately perplexing, particularly in the lyrics.
The opening ‘Mellow Drama’ borrows heavily from an old folk song, perhaps best known to movie buffs as ‘The Big-Rock Candy Mountain’ from ‘O Brother Where Art Thou?’, but Tattersdill’s clever if abstract wordplay is a long way from the spirit of timeless artlessness of that tune. He is accompanied by attractive if conventional acoustic guitars and the vocal is doubled up the octave by the excellent Lizzie Parle. A pleasant confection but I’m damned if I know what the song is supposed to be about.
Much less obscure is the pioneer ballad ‘Cosmic Picaresque’, with the twist that the folks on the Oregon Trail are augmented by a troop of space-hopping aliens, who simply want to join in a good ol’ hoe-down, as opposed to harbouring the usual tedious motives- world domination, grabbing mineral deposits, the desire to freak out rednecks etc. etc. As country rock it’s first class, with lots of speeding banjos, ragged close-harmony and all carried off with plenty of humour and dash. Tattersdill’s wordiness is a positive good here, as his need to get all the lyrics out creates an urgent, exciting dynamic even without the excellent backing group’s taut contribution.
Thus, Tattersdill appears to be yet another of the Oxford music scene’s awkward talents- an intriguing lyricist and more-than-useful musician, although the rampant silliness of most of his material will leave the chin-strokers cold. More fool them.