SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #196 : LUCKY PIERRE

I’ve one 7” item by Lucky Pierre in the collection. It’s called Pierre’s Final Thought and it dates from 2000, being picked up on the basis that Lucky Pierre was the name adopted by Aidan Moffat for a side-project. It was a name he kept in use until 2005 when he shortened it to L Pierre, and over the years he has released five albums and eight singles/EPs of music that, shall we say, is a long way removed from his stuff with Arab Strap, Bill Wells or RM Hubbert, or indeed any of the solo material he’s issued under his own name.

It’s actually best to rely on what other, more talented writers have said at various junctures. This was Betty Clarke, in The Guardian in 2002, reviewing Hypnogogia, the debut album:-

Lucky Pierre – aka Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat – makes songs full of childlike innocence and fairy-tale fears, with the intensity and claustrophobia of nightmares frighteningly evoked. The pictures on the album sleeve sum up the nature of Moffat’s dance-influenced dreams. A painting of a young boy’s smiling face, faded from years of display, adorns the front, while a dark, blurred image of a ghoul graces the back. Hope and sadness are entwined. Moffat is wonderful at conveying dense emotions, but the misery is overwhelming.

And from Fiona Shepherd, writing in The List in 2017, reviewing 1948-  , the final ever release by L Pierre:-

Over the past 15 years, Arab Strap mainman Aidan Moffat has sporadically indulged as L Pierre, his DIY repository for soothing found sound, scratchy samples and field recordings. For his fifth and final fling, he has lifted wholesale (from Youtube) samples of the recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Violin Concerto in E Minor’ by esteemed soloist Nathan Milstein with the New York Philharmonic. The original recording became the first ever 12-inch long player release in 1948, hence the title, with the date left hanging pointedly because, despite persistent whispers of its demise, vinyl isn’t dead yet.

The music comes pre-distressed, with the tremulous, slightly creaky strings sounding a little warped and the concerto chopped up and stuck through a blender. Following a tantalizingly slow fade-in, a mournful melody takes subtle hold, running through the piece like a blue mist, the patina of distortion conjuring up images of European melodramas from the 70s, a realm of long doleful glances, lurid eyeshadow and fur coats. These moody moments are punctuated with stirring, urgent passages and dramatic crescendos before fading out on an exquisite haunting requiem which hits a locked groove at the end so that the listener can lick that wound for as long as they wish. It’s what Pierre would have wanted.

Make of those what you will. It doesn’t appeal much to me and I was quite disappointed with both sides of the single I picked up:-

mp3 : Lucky Pierre – Chloe
mp3 : Lucky Pierre – Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child

JC