Lloyd Cole: 1D | Album Review

It may seem a long way from Perfect Skin, Rattlesnakes and (Are You) Ready to be Heartbroken, but Lloyd Cole's more avid fans would be aware his interest in electronic music has sometimes superseded his interest in writing narrative pop songs.

Two years ago, he released a collaborative electronica album (Selective Studies Vol. 1) with Krautrock pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius.

1D (ironically titled by an '80s master of rigorously intelligent pop music?) is that album's offspring, a collection of what Cole terms "self-contained electronic circuits".

In what is more demo experiment than anything else, all 11 tracks were created by programme sequencers and (in Cole’s words) “logic”.

Inevitably, the results are too clinical: many tracks would have benefited greatly from what Cole admits are missing: harmony and counterpoint.

[ lloydcole.com ]