SCRITTI POLITTI
I’ve got “ hours and Hours of unreleaseed unreleased music”
ONE OF POP’S MOST ELUSIVE COLLECTIVES, SCRITTI POLITTI DIDN’T PLAY LIVE FOR 26 YEARS AND HAVE RELEASED JUST FIVE ALBUMS SINCE FORMING IN 1977. IN A RARE INTERVIEW, FRONTMAN GREEN GARTSIDE TELLS CLASSIC POP ABOUT DISMISSING NOSTALGIA, HIS NEWFOUND LOVE OF PLAYING LIVE AND THE PROSPECT OF A SIXTH ALBUM.
JOHN EARLS
© Tom Sheehan
“Oh, I make new music every day.” This is the kind of statement you’d expect from a musician as prolific as Damon Albarn or Pharrell Williams, but it’s a surprise to hear Green Gartside make the claim.
Since emerging in the late 70s from Leeds Polytechnic, where Soft Cell were fellow undergraduates, Scritti Politti have been a model for how to create a small-but-perfectlyformed catalogue.
From the scratchy post-punk of debut single Skank Bloc Bologna onwards, Scritti are impossible to pin down, both for the changing nature of how they’ve presented their music and for knowing when anything will appear. Green is the one constant, his gorgeous high voice a marvel of emotion and precision across hits such as The ‘Sweetest Girl’, Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin) and Oh Patti (Don’t Feel Sorry For Loverboy).
But there simply hasn’t been that much Scritti Politti music to cherish. Gartside endured well-publicised depression after 1988’s Provision, where he lived in the Welsh countryside and “didn’t speak to anyone for years” before returning with the hip-hop influenced Anomie & Bonhomie in 1999.
Green now lives happily with his wife Alys in East London, occasionally playing shows and guesting on songs by the likes of Manic Street Preachers, Kylie and Green’s friend Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip. But there hasn’t been any new Scritti Politti music since fifth album White Bread Black Beer in 2006.
He’s talking to Classic Pop from his home studio, but can Green reassure us that it isn’t festooned with cobwebs? “I’ve got hours and hours of unreleased music,” insists Gartside who was born Paul Strohmeyer, taking his new surname aged 11 when his mother married solicitor Gordon Gartside following the death of Green’s father. “I keep telling myself, ‘Yeah, this is all going to get done,’ but the problem is, I can’t finish songs. Starting something new in music, that’s the greatest feeling I’ve ever had and it happens every day. But the task of finishing a song?
That’s when I go, ‘Oh, really, do I have to?’
That’s…” There’s a slight pause, which isn’t uncommon talking to Gartside. As you’d expect from his perfectly crafted lyrics, he enjoys trying to find the right word. He finds the exact term for the task of finishing all those songs: “That’s work.”
Green sighs as he says it, as if finishing songs is a chore that nobody should put themselves through. “It’s work that I fear,” he continues. “You have to make a final decision then, and I’m not good at making final decisions. Also, with a home studio, you can fanny about forever. On one hand, I’m really pleased – I have all these hours of neat music. But on the other, I know 90% of it is unfinished. I come up with new beats and melodies easily and I’m so impassioned at that stage of creating music, because I’m making something out of nothing. But I need to finish songs from this huge backlog, I do know that.
A lot of them, I’d like to collaborate with rappers on. I’ll make those approaches once a final decision has been made on which songs will work. That could be a tricky area, but we’ll see.”
I’M NOT GOOD AT MAKING FINAL DECISIONS. WITH A HOME STUDIO, YOU CAN FANNY ABOUT FOREVER. GREEN GARTSIDE
Asked when a new album really will appear, Green seems optimistic. “I’m arrogant enough to think a lot of what’s there is really good,” he laughs. “It’s just that fear of the business of finishing things which I have a hang-up about. While I’m also starting new stuff, I’m in here every day to finish songs up. I’m going through all this music at a hell of a lick now.” Does Green regret the fact Scritti haven’t released more music? “I’m not a great one for regrets. I’m a very lucky and happy man.”