Tales Of The Unexpected

Luke Haines' 90s infamy revisited.

- Kevin Harley

The Auteurs 

People 'Round Here Don't Like To Talk About It: The Complete EMI Recordings

4/5

Cherry Red CRCDBOX 141 (6CD)

Now a one-man outsider-art cottage industry, Luke Haines has long maintained a self-sufficient refusenik sensibility, unbeholden to trend, time and place. In this six-disc set, his 90s-early 00s albums under the Auteurs/Baader Meinhof banners conjure worlds unto themselves: worlds of glamour soured and silkily judicious cynicism, alluring and biting.

Featuring the four Auteurs albums proper, the Baader Meinhof album and orchestral 'best of' Das Capital alongside sundry B-sides and acoustic demos, People 'Round Here... is not quite exhaustive. Rare live album No Dialogue With Cunts perhaps merited inclusion. But it does serve pungent evidence of Haines' resistance to capitulation, an unimpressed worldview that emerged buttressed from the off.

Now 30 years young, New Wave lays out Haines' fatalist screed from the disdainful design "for life" of Showgirl to Starstruck's account of a career in life-long freefall. A pre-emptive affront to 90s triumphalism, the results are exactingly defined. James Banbury's cello stays sharp, the post-punk guitars remain brusque. Road-rager Valet Parking and petty-crime study Housebreaker serve the astringent pitch impeccably, before Subculture asserts its maker's bunker mentality: "They can't find me."

Now well-positioned, The Auteurs ripped out of the gates confidently on second album Now I'm A Cowboy's fiery opener Lenny Valentino. Haines later lamented the album's supposed over-production and lyrical Americana, but Gold Against The Soul it ain't. The observational cut of Chinese Bakery and Life Classes/Life Model withstand Lou Reed and Pulp comparisons, while bonus entries Car Crazy and Government Bookstore affirm Haines' form.