Album: Human Don't Be Angry, Human Don't Be Angry (Chemikal Underground)

Human Don't Be Angry is a side-project by Malcolm "Arab Strap" Middleton which mostly eschews his usual glum ruminations in favour of pleasingly methodical instrumental trifles.

The sci-fi tone of pieces like the Numanoid electropop exercise "H.D.B.A. Theme" and "The Missing Plutonium" evokes the late 70s/early 80s, with the latter's industriously cycling synth and guitar figures recalling the sumptuously layered solo work of Neu!'s Michael Rother. Elsewhere, the use of vibes and marimba makes "Jaded" and "After the Pleasuredome" resemble what 50s lounge-music auteurs like Martin Denny might have come up with if they had devised a more robotic form of sci-fi exotica. Such lyrics as appear tend to reflect the overall mood of alienated displacement.

DOWNLOAD THIS The Missing Plutonium; First Person Singular, Present Tense; Jaded; 1985