Until Tonight by Radioactive Sparrow

Among other things Radioactive Sparrow were always satirical. While the 1994 album ‘Until Tonight’ remains the high-low watermark in anti-professionalist, anti-formal atrocity, it also features a strong element of satire. During the 2003-09 hiatus Tony Gage had a bona fide radio hit with Tall Pony and the song he wrote and sang for them, ‘I’m Your Boyfriend, Now.’ It’s possible to see an antecedent to the acerbic, satirical humour of that song in Until Tonight’s opener, ‘You Cunt,’ in Tony’s examination of a particularly British strain of mindless machismo.

Another long-term preoccupation for the band was the idea of wrongness and disregarding hierarchical standards of performative professionalism and virtuosity. Until Tonight represents one of their most emphatic statements in this respect. The album, as an ‘album,’ kind of deteriorates as it progresses-regresses across 14 tracks, it’s the sonic equivalent of watching a structure made out of card slowly fall apart once dropped into a large, dirtily unforgiving puddle. As such it challenges the listener to discern any kind of aesthetic appeal, and does so in a much more articulate way than, say, harsh noise or minimal drone music: because the apparatus of pop is still wholly distinguishable as the forms disintegrate. If there’s anything to be valued in this record then it’s that; but in terms of putting on a record to enjoy, it might be quite tough going…