Tom Minor is the master of the genre-hop skip and jump, but the great thing is that once he has landed on the other side of the sonic fence, he then seems to be able to turn that soundscape to his own will. The result is an ever-shifting sound, one that blends, borrows, and bends all manner of styles, yet never sounds like anything other than Tom Minor.
“Bureau of Change” sees him don his tonics and brogues and dance through two-tone pastures, but for every familiar sonic move he weaves in something unexpected… not least some bolshy bolero beats, arabesque refrains, his trademark existential angst, and barrow-boy gangster pop grooves.
Change is good! It’s not the first of his songs to say so, but the point here is that change is not always the same as progress, not everything revolutionary is the way forward, something worth remembering in a world where every commercial pronouncement, every new product, every media moment, every new political party is heralded as the future, life-changing, something you must have.
There is something of Madness in this sonic array, but then this is music from adjoining London postcodes, and both seem to have a way of talking about serious social issues, wrapped in a coded, more fun language from the heart of the city. And why not, if you get the punters dancing along, and they won’t even realize that you are trying to teach them something important, not until it’s too late and the message has, like a Trojan horse rumbling up Camden High Street, done its job.
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