When music comes from a thousand different directions there’s a history of it to being a little off-centred or confused hence, when Davey Newington recently admitted that 1,2 Kung Fu! had been influenced by a roster including Paul McCartney, Black Sabbath and Caribou, by definition it had the ‘too ambitious’ label applied simply by default.
From Cardiff, Newington cut his teeth drumming in the bluesome garage trio Houdini Dax and also for Charlotte Church as part of her Late Night Pop Dungeon, assembling the album’s raw materials part time in collaboration with local producer Ed Al Shakarchi.
This composite approach inevitably leads to a broken sort of groove, but the payoff is that every full stop throws up another fresh-sounding idea; opener Breakfast Epiphany is a gentle awakening, a swirl of reflection and florid throwbacks that reveal a sticksman-turned-singer in possession of a confident voice.
The early morning peace is shattered immediately, however, on Loner Boogie; a glorious salute to the in-the-kitchen oddballs who make life either richer or more dangerous, with a strong-arm, nervous riff and revved up distortion made big just to make a pointless f*****g point.
Breathless, we then segue into another mood map on Face Behind Her Cigarette, a maudlin piece of synth pop that splits the difference between the two songs before it, avoiding the trap of having to bother explaining itself and being just what it is.
Some of this freewheeling is probably the result of not being forced to create sequentially, the rest down to deploying your own filter, but 1, 2 Kung Fu!’s twisting vibe and unexpected journeys are a quality long since perfected by fellow Welshmen Super Furry Animals, and it’s to their eclectic tenderness and warmth that tunes like Taxi To Your Head and Hangover Square are most relatable to.
The supreme humanity of SFA’s work is hard to master, and if anything it’s this which seems to be the only piece of the jigsaw that Newington still needs to find; it’s a streak of empathy that would surely turn the introvert closer Sitting On The First Rock From The Sun and Losers In The Tomb from powerful, desultory footnotes into the compassionate anthems they fall just short of being.
There’s also a time issue here; as the process of making his debut album wore on, Boy Azooga itself has transformed from being a solo effort into a fully fledged band, one where the song writing duties are shared and the democracy of people may in future dictate that a consensus twists the picture.
1, 2 Kung Fu! is by that token a snapshot already due to be pasted into a scrapbook left under someone’s bed, a decaying analogue despite its generous, contemporary meld of beats and paisley. Blueprints are sometimes for losers, but although Davey Newington’s alone might be the last we hear of it for now, they’re definitely plans worth seeking out.
