Keeping Some Dark Secrets

So where were we? Oh right, running down the tracks from Johnny Foreigner’s unreleased first full-length WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow, recorded by the nascent trio in 2005 or so, prior to bassist Kelly Southern’s tenure in the band. But before we lay another two tracks on you — we’ve decided to go two at a time as our blogging efforts will soon be curtailed by the arrival of a baby girl — we wanted to reiterate our plea for any and all reportage you care to share from your experiences attendingJohnny Foreigner shows. As if you didn’t know already, the Birmingham, England-based noise-pop trio has completed the recording and mixing of its sophomore full-length for Best Before Records in the U.S. and has returned to its native land, where it is touring in support of Hundred Reasons through April 6. Johnny Foreigner is already three dates in, and our email box lays empty and unmolested. So please, if you’re out there and you’re seeing the shows, file a report. Our operators are standing by now (do they say that in England?).

Let’s review: to date we’ve shared with you the first four and the final tracks of WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow, which puts us squarely in the middle of the running order. So today let’s talk about “His Floor Is My Ashtray” and “I’m Leaving… Soon,” tracks five and six respectively. We already referenced the former as a highlight of the “lost” record in our initial assessment here three weeks ago. Citing the record’s “carefree and expansive experimentalism,” we offered as an example “the wild tumult and the ensuing, surprisingly quiet close of ‘His Floor Is My Ashtray.’ The tune quietly nestles into a reverie built on a reversed drum track, plucking on the guitar strings behind the bridge and band fronter Alexei Berrow murmuring ‘he just calls it like he sees it’ over and over again into the fade.’” Sounds pretty good, yeh?

“I’m Leaving… Soon” is notable for the prescient guitar lick that drives the composition. Mr. Berrow is an avowed Craig Finn/Hold Steady fan, so it is sort of an amazing coincidence that the opening guitar business of “I’m Leaving… Soon” would fit well (with a little wiggling, of course) within “One For The Cutters,” track three on The Hold Steady’s very good 2008 Stay Positive. The Johnny Foreigner track is substantially more forlorn, and Berrow’s murmured vocals alternates spaces with some spacey synths that pulse and pan across a stereo field perforated with clacking drum machine. The last 40 seconds are surprisingly overdriven, as live drums enter the mix and Berrow takes to the rafters to scream away his disappointment — it’s quite affecting.

Johnny Foreigner — “His Floor Is My Ashtray” — WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow
Johnny Foreigner — “I’m Leaving… Soon” — WeLeftYouSleepingAndGoneNow
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Filed under: Johnny Foreigner by Jay