Richard Barratt was there. He was there when the Sheffield youth first started mixing drum machines and soul, when Cabaret Voltaire begat Human League, before Heaven 17 and ABC went global. He was there when pub DJs started giving themselves ridiculous names, like his own pseudonym DJ Parrott, and tried their hand at building a Paradise Garage on every corner. He was there when the soil-your-pants excitement at this thing called house music created the great sampladelic explosion of late-’80s UK pop. He was there, at the Hacienda (which he once gloriously described as “a vision of hell”), and at the birth of Sheffield’s own massively influential “bleep” label. He was also there when it all went to hell in the early ’90s with the anti-rave laws and the drugs, with the cult of the DJ and the lack of musical and human diversity; which is when he stopped being there.
This is all unsubtly true. But as that point about Barratt’s disengagement hopefully makes clear, the facts of history can only account for so much. And while Parrott really did give up DJing (completely) and producing (mostly, kinda), there is a big difference between facts, and the emotional resonance of lives that create them. If there’s one thing that Barratt’s return as Crooked Man makes clear, it's the nature of the resonance which makes the story. Barratt’s stockpile of grumpy tales with hopeful edges is an opportunity to gather round a bassbin and bask.
The basic premise of Crooked Man is house music as a classic songwriting form. The album collects nine vocal tracks, many of which Barratt has self-released in microscopic vinyl quantities since 2012, resulting in a pop-dance album that lives comfortably alongside Caribou and Disclosure, but with pedigree and craftsmanship, and zero aspiration to the “new.” In this, Crooked Man fits the moment: EDM songsmiths’ conservative structures top the charts, popular disco and house remixes gloriously restage contemporary material rather than deconstructing it, while much of the club underground rebels against these dated designs. Yet even though Barratt and writing partner—another Sheffield music lifer, Michael Somerset Ward—come up with results that are undoubtedly old-fashioned, they’re not the slightest bit nostalgic. The pair hook earworms with the pride of professional writers, methodically and gleefully revisit British dance music’s cornerstone structures (electronic soul, dub, acid-house), and reinforce the dancefloor’s inclusive, anti-commercialist ideologies from a position of long-held beliefs. That’s how Crooked Man ends up feeling like the unlikely product of the Brill Building, Wigan Casino, and, say, the Music Box—classy, classic, and defiant.
It helps that the album is also deftly programmed and controlled. There’s a clear narrative arc to the sonic range—ambient-house chill-out to open (“Coming Up for Air”), a deep dub version of a Northern Soul classic (Soul Brothers Six’s “I’ll Be Loving You”), radio-friendly electro-pop (“Girl With Better Clothes”), and a gospel-house anthem that serves as an emotional exclamation point (“Happiness”). The vocalists too, an assortment of 20 Feet From DJ-style locals and lesser knowns, expertly play their roles. The angelic falsetto of Sunburst Band’s Pete Simpson appears in exultation and testifies against soul-destroying machines. Bostonian diva-in-the-making, Amy Douglas, brings the biblical boom. And young, boisterous Sheffielders Rachel E and Danae Wellington get involved in excellent kiss-off moments—not of lovers, but of modern scourges such as fashionistas, bankers, and purveyors of boring-ass beats. When a chorus calls for strength in numbers, they become a gang.
Hence, Crooked Man’s overall vibe is the timeless aspiration of people who share great parts of their lives on dark dance-floors. All these songs boil down to the idea of community and its desires and rules, a set of signposts to keep the party going in the right direction. In many cases, these may be generic—Simpson’s cooing prayer to “love your friends” (“Try Me”), or Douglas’ motivational declaration that “we’ll get on the right track” (“Happiness”)—yet with a great big dollop of soul (and the right piano chords), they blossom exponentially. In at least one case though, it’s specific as all get out: “Tell all the witch doctors/There ain’t no presets,” rings the hands-in-the-air vocal hook of “Preset,” Crooked Man’s most fully-formed address on the beat-wise freedoms. Amid an insistent thumb-piano loop, the track expands, opens up and goes deep, with smiles and tears mixing forever-ever.
This is the natural oblivion of people who live long enough to end up justified and ancient. It’s a curse, but it’s also a source of the joy. Because being there isn’t all it’s cracked up to be if you’re not also willing to be here now; which, whether Barratt will ever admit through all his cynicism, is never a question in his music.
