Ever wondered where fiction, depraved eroticism and moral bankruptcy first met?
Try 1884, with Against Nature, a debauched Bible that smeared poetic vice in every orifice and sucked out every metaphorical drop of diseased sin possible! Written by ultra-decadent, French pervert J.K. Huysmans, the book hit Oscar Wilde like raw, intravenous Viagra, making him immediately toss off Dorian Gray. Way before Alexander McQueen’s similarly provocative cocktail of sex, death and religious fetishism, Huysmans prised open the Oedipal fingers of a still barely-glimpsed, Freudian future, exposing all the screaming sexual frenzies behind Victorian hypocrisy.
Christ, no wonder the core message of Against Nature– total sexual and psychic freedom from prissy, social clichés – still furiously angers straight society. I mean, who’d really want to be some dopey, mother cow or fatally overworked jerk, funding endless brats in the hell called heterosexual marriage? Mercifully, all of England’s Highest, Holy Gay Trinity – Oscar Wilde, Quentin Crisp, and the fabulously still-with-us Marc Almond – ran screaming from such a poxy life-sentence.
And Marc, of course – like Bjork, Prince and Gaga – is a brilliantly restless, musical chameleon. So no wonder, finally, he’s submitted to a long-standing temptation to re-imagine Huysman’s bizarre perversions as a breath-taking banquet of barely-legal torch songs. Ever been instantly seduced? Screamed to be fucked like a bunny on the spot? This, darlings, is music as instant, stealthy, date-rape drug – one hit on your headphones equals soaking-panties paradise!
Why be surprised? Like any criminally brilliant creator, Marc has previous form to die for, from his astoundingly unhinged Torment and Toreros to Soft Cell’s meltingly gorgeous Torch. If unmatched by any lyricist ever in his delirious, relentless evocations of sexual ecstasy and desire, Marc still, modestly, adores playing with gorgeously warped wild cards.
He’s joined, this time, by acclaimed, pansexual poet and lyricist Jeremy Reed, performance artist Othon, and – gracing the jaw-dropping cover – Lindsay Kempas the living spirit of Absinthe. Opener ‘Ennui’ is all jarring, dental-drill piano, an oft-kilter rush brilliantly recalling the transvestite mania of Hitchcock’s Psycho, a perfect sonic portrait of mental disturbance. But – with Marc’s breathlessly excited vocals suggesting Noel Coward vivisecting the Marquis De Sade – things get slicker and sicker yet.
‘Flowers and Cannibals’ – such a scrumptious phrase – completely uncorks Marc’s signature, bad Juju genie, as disturbed ward inmates frolic more delicately than closeted, Sunday-school vicars. Still, if ever a voice sound-tracked instant incentive to rapturous rimming and other swooning delights, it’s here. More expressively than ever before, apparently drowning in ecstatic piano chords, Marc, quite effortlessly, pleasures Jeremy Reed’s neurotically lush lyrics in a maverick master-class. So why waste time spraying spunk on the altar of dead gay idols? Right here, right now, we have an extraordinarily living Marc Almond, the Poet Laureate of perfect perversion!
• LIFT FESTIVAL 2016
Are you barely sane? A totally-addicted art addict? Don’t despair, take LIFT!
Starting next week, LIFT – the London International Festival of Theatre – kicks off with stellar, gay performance artist Taylor Mac taking no prisoners at Hackney Empire on June 1st. (0208-985-2424). A trans-genre shaman melting all known boundaries, he’s not to be missed! And novelist, playwright and theatre director Neil Bartlett’s ‘Stella’ – the true story of a Victorian drag-queen tried in court – runs at Hoxton Hall, also from June 1st. (0207-684-0060). Enjoy!
• Got surgically-urgent, arts and theatre news? [email protected].
