'Shufflemania' by Robyn Hitchcock
Not unlike his fellow U.K. singer-songwriter Nick Lowe, Robyn Hitchcock presents his art with a lightness that can seem unserious. Yet his long shelf of work—from 1979’s A Can of Bees, when he was leading the Soft Boys, to Shufflemania!, his 22nd solo album—has withstood the changes that turn witty novelty into withered memory.
Although the latest record does follow its predecessor, Robyn Hitchcock, by five years, which is a conspicuously long gap for the man, it shows none of the weariness that a listener might expect from a creator who turns 70 next March.
Perhaps his musical friends keep him young: the Raconteurs’ Brendan Benson provides drums, bass guitar, organ, vocals, and a garage-rock pile-on aesthetic to the opening track, “The Shuffle Man,” while the Smiths’ Johnny Marr is a prime sinuous mover for the shimmery folk strumming of “The Inner Life of Scorpio.”
Familiar personnel show up—Wilco’s Patrick Sansone and Soft Boys alumnus Kimberley Rew are notable examples—and Hitchcock takes comfort in their expert company. He unearths spiritual sensuality in the twang of “The Feathery Serpent God,” stomps a pub-rock foot to the beat of “The Sir Tommy Shovel,” and blows his harmonica like it’s a mystery locomotive’s call in “Midnight Tram to Nowhere.”
Lyrically, Hitchcock avoids the smartass side of his humor and stirs the motes of mysticism floating in everyday air, and his voice, while not technically dazzling when holding a note or melody, emanates immense expressiveness, quavering toward a falsetto on “The Man Who Loves the Rain” or bottoming out in “The Raging Muse.”
He closes with “One Day (It’s Being Scheduled),” his faux-lullaby version of John Lennon’s “Imagine”—Lennon’s son, Sean Ono Lennon, supplies several instruments—and it’s both hopeful and grim, beautiful and intelligent. With Shufflemania!, Robyn Hitchcock remains serious about his craft and decidedly unsolemn about almost everything else.
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