Psychic Life: Julie Campbell + Jah Wobble with Keith Levene
This is Tightrope by Psychic Life, the new project from Julie Campbell + Jah Wobble with contributions from the latter’s colleague in the first Public Image Ltd line-up, Keith Levene.
Campbell released an album last year as Lonelady.
In a recently-released statement, Wobble talks about how the project rose from the ashes of his decision not to join John Lydon’s PiL reunion, his astoundment at Campbell’s conviction, Levene’s re-entry into his musical life and Western culture and creativity in the post-industrial, information age.
Here are some excerpts:
The [PiL] episode further whetted my appetite to make a post-punk album in the original PiL mode (but with a modern sensibility – there’s no point in making ‘museum music’).
The thing that had always thwarted me was the distinct lack of a charismatic (in the right ‘uncharismatic’ way) singer/front person.
I had been on the lookout for ‘the one’, on and off, for 20-odd years. To be honest, I had never even come close.
However, not being able to find the right person has never baffled me. It is, after all, a tall order. They would need to be able to deal convincingly with a number of styles of music, while always being their own (authentic) idiosyncratic self.
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Spoken word needs to be part of the package in a venture like this. For all its darkness and trauma, post-punk is connected (inextricably) to the ideals of late 19th century romanticism, especially its poetry, which rails, quite rightly, against the rationalisation of life and nature.
Back then, the industrial age was the enemy, whereas now it’s the information-led age, the new Tower of Babble, in its myriad forms, that stands infantile and all-pervasive in opposition to the romantic ideal.
Facebook and the industrial revolution point towards the same thing. Unthinking, unhappy uniformity – well, fuck that. (that’s why post-punk came about; because ‘punk’ became unthinking, unhappy and uniform – and artistically restricting).
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So as I sat there, on a bright fresh early spring afternoon, I had one question on my mind: ‘Is this the one?’ The early indications were very positive. Julie was well up to give it a go. All I could promise, at that point, was that it was highly likely that the process would be a lot of fun and that nice dinners would be eaten in nice restaurants.
She also told me that she was a serious PiL fan, which delighted me. That meant that we were halfway there already. I suggested that we get Keith Levene to play some guitar for us.
Keith had been in contact with me in the months leading up to my meeting with Julie. In fact, I had already had a bash with him at the end of one of my gigs.
I knew that he was very aware that he had wasted so many years pursuing the wrong things. It was a good time to be getting him in. We decided that we would cut some basic backing tracks, and if all went well, we would get Levene to play on them.
No-one has ever come close to Levene in terms of playing the non-square, non-bourgeoisie, harmonically hip, ‘guitar wash’ a la Poptones, Theme, etc.
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Julie put vocals down. I noticed her thick, bound notebook of lyrics. I asked if I could peruse them. I was astounded; there was page after page of typed (as in typed with a typewriter) lyrics.
A torrent of dark, haunting and troubled images was conveyed by the words. It was momentarily overwhelming. ‘Game on!’ I thought, ‘This girl’s the real thing. She’s a poet!’
I also found that she could really sing. Additionally I discovered that, similar to myself, she was a psychogeographer and long distance urban pedestrian (facts crucial to the creation of this project).
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Psychic Life is released on November 14. Details (and a download available October 10) here.
Read Jah Wobble’s answers to the Blokes Of Britain questionnaire here.