Brooooce!! Dept. - No Not That One, This One

Shiny. Dark and shiny.

Jack th' Bruce isn't so much depressing as serious. Scots are genetically incapable of frivolity. A Scot's smile is a rictus grimace; his laugh a death rattle. Bitter? You'd be goddamn bitter if forced to wear skirts, toss cabers, dance from the waist down and eat sheep bladder in the rain for the amusement of your smirking English overlords. Bruce broke with native tradition by sobering up enough to find work south of the border with popular beat combo The Creams, but it's his solo albums he put the most into, and we get the most out of.

The tri-ology of albums from '69 to '74,  Songs For A Tailor, Harmony Row, and Out Of The Storm is an extraordinary artistic statement. The music is uncompromised by cliché, market forces, current trends, genre categorisation, or a desire to be liked (or get laid - usually a prime motivator). It's not an easy job, evolving music out of the blues-rock tar pit of the 'sixties, but someone had to do it. His remarkable voice comes more from the lieder tradition than rock - these are unapologetically art songs - and his limber, jazz-rooted bass enables song-writing structure beyond the remit of pop. Add Pete Brown's dream-logic lyrics, contributions from the best musicians in the business, and something monumental is created.

Conventional critical wisdom - that idiot - relegates Out Of The Storm to third place, but it's entirely consistent in quality and integral to the tri-ology. The bass playing on Timeslip defies analysis and comprehension - you can follow, but never predict. Leave us face it - this stuff asks more investment from the listener than air-punching and Confederate yelps. Bruce isn't playing down for anybody (as he sometimes had to) but persistence pays dividends, and once you're in, you're in for life and your world is a better place.

For once, the covers are up to the task, setting an appropriately dark, reflective mood. Dark, reflective, demanding, but never depressing. Shiny. Things only shine in the dark. Like stars.

As an amuse gueule, here's Timeslip, with its trip-stumble bassline:

As a service to you, Mr. Freeloadin' Bum fracking the internet in your insensate greed, the loaddown cake is iced by Jack's jazz jamboree from '68, Things We Like (a missed opportunity in titling, you ax me - should of been: "Like, Things We Like") which plays beautifully with John McLaughlin's Extrapolation, should youse bums gots that already, which you should.