Jungle Up Nick Pirog

Soul Jazz apply keen ears to the ingenious era of UK rave, hardcore and jungle and its unprecedented stylistic shifts of the early ‘90s with a haul of seminal, obscure and killer cuts.

While “Cowboy Outfit” has a slightly different meaning as UK Slang, Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit marks a turn towards a more rootsy persona for our hero. Anchored by the international number one “Half a Boy and Half a Man”, the album introduces a tex-mex/roller-rink organ sound, although the lineup of Bobby Irwin, Paul Carrack, Martin Belmont and Lowe is essentially unchanged. Newly discovered Johnny Horton covers “Honky Tonk Hardwood Floor” and “Walk on By” (included here as bonus tracks) show that there may have been a more twangy intention to the record– but as it is full on rockers like “Maureen” and Mickey Jupp’s “You’ll Never Get Me Up (in One of Those)” rub shoulders with pop like Dusty Springfield’s “Breakaway” and Nick’s own “L.A.F.S.” (featuring the TKO Horns who had recently punched up arranger Elvis Costello’s own “Everyday I Write the Book”).

With guitarist/keyboardist Roland Wolf and Cramps/Gun Club veteran Kid Congo Powers on guitar added to the ranks, along with guest appearances from old member Hugo Race, the Seeds reached 1988 with their strongest album yet, the insanely powerful, gripping Tender Prey. Rather than simply redoing what they'd already done, Nick Cave and company took their striking musical fusions to deeper and higher levels all around, with fantastic consequences. The album boldly starts out with an undisputed Cave masterpiece – "The Mercy Seat," a chilling self-portrait of a prisoner about to be executed that compares the electric chair with the throne of God. Queasy strings from a Gini Ball-led trio and Mick Harvey's spectral piano snake through a rising roar of electric sound – a common musical approach from many earlier Seeds songs, but never so gut-wrenching as here. Cave's own performance is the perfect icing on the cake, commanding and powerful, excellently capturing the blend of crazed fear and righteousness in the lyrics.

Nick Cave is a singular figure in contemporary rock music; he first emerged as punk rock was making its presence known in Australia, but though he's never surrendered his status as a provocateur and a musical outlaw, he quickly abandoned the simplicity of punk for something grander and more literate, though no less punishing in its outlook…