Back To The Womb

Stockport’s Regional Bears unleashes their label MVP Russell Walker for what seems to be their debut solo album proper on ‘Back To The Womb’ – a rambling masterclass of British banalities and suburban dread.

What’s it like to be from these dogged isles?  Everyone’s experience is likely to be very different, but it’s safe to assume that whilst from the outside English life is a carousel of lawn tennis, Pimm’s, cosy homestays in the Cotswolds and trips to Harvey Nic’s, the reality is cruising the reduced isles in Aldi, trudging up a regional high-street of decaying charity shops and circuitous bus journeys in the pissing rain.  Walker’s maundering sound-poetry and tape music cut ups captures the ENDLESSLY mundane aspects of British life and reflects them back at us to reveal their utterly ludicrous and undeniably hilarous qualities.  ‘I didn’t think you’d go woke Julie’, ‘chode’, ‘splitting the G’ – Back To The Womb could be used as a future time capsule of vernacular British language.  Perfectly delivered with an acutely wry and massively understated tone, Walker’s short vignettes go everywhere and nowhere, scouring the racks of his local CEX to downing VKs in his local Wetherspoons.  This is England??  It is for us.