Wit, liveliness and crackling musical ideas, jumping between global genres with relish - Kirsty
MacColl's third album, Electric Landlady, has all of them. It also has quite the title, as her friend
and occasional songwriting partner Johnny Marr writes over e-mail. "We spent a lot of time
together [then] hanging out, listening to records late at night and then making our own records
during marathon recording sessions. I lived in her flat in Shepherds Bush which is how we came
up with 'Electric Landlady'".
" Travelling the world with her husband, producer Steve Lillywhite, had given her exposure to big
bands like the Rolling Stones and Talking Heads, with whom she gladly sang backing vocals. But
her friends and voracious appetite for new music is what drove her creativity. Electric Landlady
also saw the love of Cuban and Latin American rhythms in her life, which had been fired in her
childhood by her brother's record collection, beginning to bud and bloom in her work. World-
renowned artists like drummer Jos Mangual Jr, trumpeter Angel Hernandez, timbalero Mark
Quinones and bassist Sal Cuevas joined her band, enhancing and enriching her glorious songs.
" Many collaborations light up this LP. The defiant country swing of All I Ever Wanted was a result
of a writing partnership by post, exchanging tapes with American musician Marshall Crenshaw.
He Never Mentioned Love, written with The Pogues' Jem Finer, is a more mature, wry take on
Kirsty's earlier girl group-flavoured pop. The Hardest Word, written with her older brother,
Hamish, is also about their late father, the renowned folk singer Ewan, with whom she had a
tough relationship.
" Pressed up on 180g audiophile vinyl, half speed mastered from the original analogue tapes by
Phil Kinrade at AIR studios.
