First Glances – Patrick T. Davies
And now for something completely different. Patrick T. Davies is a punk poet from Manchester, his visceral spoken word pulling no punches in the distinctive local twang. The heir apparent to the mayor of Chickentown maybe, but the region’s most famous wordsmith has rarely been this angry, quickfire or on the nose – just as dour, sure, but rarely this acerbically amusing either.
Combining Davies’s two EPs to date plus one stand-alone single that features the talents of breakcore artist Gore Tech, this hour-long cassette release features inflammatory artwork as likely to incur a cease-and-desist from Philip Morris as it is Viscount Rothermere. Tackling sizzling polemics and breadline brutality over dubby drum tracks, post-punk guitars and blunt beats that all keep Davies’s furious flow ticking over, you can hear his skills as a producer improving track by track as he learns on the job.
It’s a trajectory that already landed him choice invites to open up for the likes of Cabbage and The Blinders pre-COVID. A self-deprecating and dextrous lyricist who, by his own admission, has never been in a band though, Davies nevertheless strikes a humble figure, his down-to-earth qualities and simultaneous outsider allure the secret to his charm, his chameleonic powers of observation letting him harvest inspiration from all those he encounters.
Quite what Davies has made of the lockdown Britain we can only suppose as this material was all recorded pre-pandemic in the aftermath of Brexit; our bet though is that his notepads are full of stinging scribbling just waiting to be heard. Tide over the wait for those withering takedowns in the company of this truly unique back catalogue.
~The Terrible Twenties / Agenda Bender double EP cassette will be released by Ramber Records September 10th.~