Cargo Records

The Dirty Canon

Produced in Hamburg by polymath artist and Pogues-founder Jem Finer and Louisiana swamp-pop legend DM Bob, and finished in London with Brian O'Shaughnessy (of Screamadelica fame), The Dirty Canon has big booming piledrivers, lost soul singalongs, flophouse ballads, epic screeching skronking songs, monkey grunts, thunder and lightning.

The Figs began in the spring of 1999 as a kind of experiment in ambitious ineptitude and pop form, with the idea of finding a common ground between the 'amateurism' of punk, folk and avant-garde music. They played a wide array of odd venues and events, and they spent a long time in the wilderness, writing songs and preaching to the choir. They have emerged with a highly idiosyncratic sound, a devoted cult in London and Berlin, and an enormously varied arsenal of marvellous songs. Marseille Figs are: singer and songwriter J. Maizlish, multi-instrumentalist Dorian McFarland and secret weapon Tom Chant. They are joined on The Dirty Canon by the legendary John Edwards on double bass. H J. Maizlish writes songs, sings and plays guitars and ukeleles. He was born on the edge of a small town in California. He flew to New York when he was 17 to become an artist, ending up at St. Martins in London making films in the Underground tunnels. Through these he came to study under Punk and Performance godfather Stuart Brisley, who introduced him to McFarland. H Dorian McFarland plays accordions, mouth harps, horns and miscellany. He was born in Cambridge, and in the Summer of '98 he and Maizlish exhibited in the same show in Marseille. That Christmas, he acquired his first accordion, which he learned to play on stage with the Figs. H Tom Chant plays saxophones, clarinets and keyboards. He was born in Dublin and raised in Lavender Hill. He's also a member of the Eddie Prévost Trio and the Cinematic Orchestra, and he's played with everyone who's anyone in the improvised and avant scene in London. " The Figs roll. The Figs rock. The Figs take it to the bridge, over the bridge, across the ridge on the other side of the bridge, and onto that ledge on the horizon. I wanna be in the Figs." Sean O'Hagan