Robb Johnson & The Irregulars – Eurotopia (CD)
Irregular Records – 21 February 2020
Robb Johnson’s latest album, Eurotopia, is a collection of reflections on his travels around Europe but is no musical travelogue. Such places are settings or stimuli, places to go from or get to but what is important are the people in these places and their stories. That, and the rain. This set takes us around London and Europe: personal memories of My Last Night in Montmartre and of Tram Number 22 in Prague; collective memories, histories that we should not forget like those on the train to Stalingrad, or those connected with the Kreuzberg Sisters in Berlin.
In the most part, the songs are gentle, though definitely not soft. The edge, the point, appearing when least expected, sharper and more incisive when heard against the soft guitar or the laid-back jazzy brushes. But there are times when the anger is real, when there is no time for compromise. Welcome to the Museum encapsulates all that we embrace in our lives without thought or passing interest in the route taken to get to us. Things consumed without a thought of who paid the price to get the food to our plate, the clothes on our back, the phone in our pocket.
In many ways these things are timeless. Humans do not appear to be a species for whom compassion comes easily. In Once Upon A Time on the Road to Eurotopia, people have aspirations for their children’s future but also have to compete against the harsh realities of their real lives wrecked by a war “that kept coming closer” and in attempting to escape become cargo, aiming for Eurotopia but “the water kept on rising’
There are also sheer celebrations of life, of love through a glanced scene, a Doisneau moment caught in the throng over the ‘khaki Thames’ where
He stood there like Charing Cross Station
and she kissed him like Hungerford Bridge.
In many ways, it is Robb’s ability to see these small, often insignificant things in everyday life that makes his songs special. Apparently minor incidents or observations are celebrated and stories built around, whether it be a standoff between a pigeon and a lap dog in Coincidents On The Circle Line or fourteen fortune tellers in the Snug & Cellar waiting to see If The Night Runs Out Before The Money Runs Out. It is this, and choosing the right words that sound right in song but also in context that make Robb one of our best song writers.
It is almost unnecessary to mention Robb’s politics. It pervades all he does, the very nature and subject of his songs are coloured by the sense of right and wrong, of how the imbalance of the have and the have-nots have an impact on even the very ordinary bits of our life. And I suppose that is where the power comes, as it is the fact that these very ordinary aspects of ordinary peoples lives are continually prodded, pushed and propelled unwillingly. It could also be said that the songs on Eurotopia are a reflection of the way that Europe has been centre stage in this country’s politics for the past four years. So large that other, more important things, have been at best put on hold and at worst neglected to the point of being forgotten or even abandoned.
There is a great sense of Englishness, Britishness in Robb’s songs without being jingoistic or insular. There is a correct celebration of who the English are and what their place in this world should be. There is also, I said at the start, rain, the Englishman abroad lamenting the rain that refuses to fall on a hot night in Montmartre, or that the Kreuzberg Sisters catch the rain, one drop at a time, or that the rain falls on you and me in Frisco. However, I leave the best line until the end, a simple line that sums up so much about today. When you buy this album, which you should, and you get your phone out, switch the camera round to show your face and the cover, and press that button, remember “I take my selfie therefore I exist”.
In practical terms, you should know that when you buy Eurotopia, you buy the product but not necessarily the whole concept. Irregular Records (Robb’s own label) like to do things if not irregular at least because they like ‘art that doesn’t merely aspire to conformity’. So, to get the whole experience you probably ought to get the vinyl and the CD. The LP has nine songs, four of which also appear on the 13-track CD, though in different form.
Photo Credit: Milan Svanderlik