Organic Bondage

Famously issued in a limited-edition wooden sleeve, courtesy of Barrett's alternate career as a carpenter and furniture maker, Organic Bondage finds England's most idiosyncratic multi-instrumentalist venturing into full-length album waters for the first time since 1981 — albeit with a new collaborator, Stephen Two Names, and songwriting input from one of the era's most obscenely underrated composers, Eddie Stanton. Best known for contributing the glorious "Focke Wulf" to Otway & Barrett's The Wimp and the Wild album, Stanton serves up the three finest songs on this disc: "Please Don't Throw Me to the Christians," "Tales from the Raj," and the expostulatory "Milton Keynes (We Love You)" ode to his own hometown. Organic Bondage is not, however, a mere one-man show. Barrett's playing and arrangements throughout are exemplary — just when you thought you never needed to hear another version of "Jack O'Diamonds" again, he serves up a real ripper, while "Moose Loose Kicking" is as great as its title suggests it should be. Altogether, then, Organic Bondage is another in a succession of triumphs from Barrett, and the only disappointment there is that there should be many more of them.