Pet Playing

A few years after their foray into musicals, the Pet Shop Boys, who are quite possibly disco-pop's most intellectual act, have returned with another project: a live score to Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Battleship Potemkin was a silent film made in Leninist Russia in 1925, and tells the (somewhat idealized) story of a revolt among sailors of the Czar's Black Sea fleet. Given the Pet Shop Boys' history of playing with Leninist imagery (take, for example, the lyrics to 'West End Girls'), they were a suitably apt choice to do a live score to this film.

PET SHOP BOYS Totally (Rare and legendary 1988 Japanese promotional-only 11-track CD album - unquestionably
one of their rare titles, this unique compilation is the jewel of any PSB collection! This is one of those items
you often hear about but hardly ever see. Housed in a superb custom black & white picture sleeve, taking its cue
from the Introspective artwork.

With its debut album, Relentless (Brooke Records, 2011) WorldService Project announced itself as a band to watch. Since that release, the five-piece—led by keyboardist and principal composer Dave Morecroft—has consolidated its reputation as a cooking live band, in particular in its Match & Fuse live collaborations with like-minded bands from across Europe. Now, its second album, Fire in a Pet Shop, is radically different to Relentless; different enough that fans of the earlier record may wish to sample the follow-up before embracing it. This time out, WorldService Project seems to have opted to play it for laughs, as is suggested by the quirky album title itself (a phrase used as a disparaging description of certain types of improvised music) and the track name "Change the F**king Record"—both of which the group must surely hope will not come back to haunt it. In addition, the album's cartoon cover and in-jokey musician credits like "Morecroft: clown," contribute to the impression that WSP may have been overdosing on old Frank Zappa records.