Kid Carpet - Songs From Repo Chick

In a world that often feels increasingly cynical it’s particularly beneficial to spend half an hour in the company of Bristol based Ed Patrick - aka Kid Carpet - the king of seemingly innocent alt-pop pleasures. ‘Songs From Repo Chick’ is a collection of songs which form the soundtrack to cult hero film director Alex Cox’s latest, ‘Repo Chick’, which looks set to be a pretty odd tale and no mistake if the subject matter on some of the tracks here is anything to go by.

‘Herd Of Cows’ tells of a surreal night in the middle of a town in which the said herd are roaming free - mind you, in the wild old West Country this kind of occurrence isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. ‘Last Word’ is a poignant snapshot of the dying moments of a relationship, prevented from turning into sentimental schmaltz by being surrounded by the incongruous beeps and whizzes from a child’s toy. ‘Chuck It Away’ is fairly fizzing with pent up energy just allowed to explode, clocking in at just over a minute and a half of breakneck hardcore synthpop, the equivalent of submerging your entire head in a bucket of icy water.

Elsewhere, ‘Dancing Monkey’ is told from the viewpoint of a monkey who escaped from a zoo only to be trapped in a circus and forced into a miserable life of ‘turning tricks’ for the apes and baboons. All very cleverly quirky, but the plodding melody never quite fully ignites and at one inexplicably embarrassing moment, Kid Carpet starts riffing on the hymn ‘Lord of the Dance’ - “So dance then, wherever you may be /I am the Lord of the Dance, KC / And I’ll lead you all on /Whoever you may be / Because I am a dancing monkey.” Anyone who isn’t cringing behind the nearest cushion at this point surely has a constitution of steel. And quite how the storyline of ‘Repo Chick’ hangs together with such a crazy ragbag collection of oddball tracks is anyone’s guess, but it’s pretty safe to say it’s not likely to be your typical Hollywood rom com.

‘She’s A Vegan’ fair zips along, underpinned with a great big bouncy synth bassline with Kid duetting with a female vocalist which has the bonus of forcing him to sing rather than continue with his vaguely wearying spoken word delivery. Closing track ‘Shiny Shiny New’ has rock guitar squiggles dancing all over it, proving that although Kid Carpet’s weapon of choice will probably always be a cheap ‘n’ cheerful Casio, it’s a refreshing blast when he decides to rock out on his own terms as on this track.

By the end of the record, you’re grateful to have has the chance for a run around the squidgy, bouncy castle world gleefully inhabited by Kid Carpet but at the same time you can’t help but be slightly relieved to be free from his deadpan delivery and trappings of faux naivety which often stray into twee territory. Another thing which is slightly grating is the fact that Ed seems to have a definite Cockney twang to his accent without a hint of West Country twinge you might expect from a Bristolian - a small point, admittedly, but once it lodges itself in your mind you can’t quite forget it. Potentially dubious accents aside, the more worrying snag is that down to earth, heart on sleeve, DIY sounding tracks have already been created to great acclaim by The Streets and chunky synth heavy alt pop has been done to death by everyone from Bis to Stereolab to Passion Pit. So while it’s clearly a blast to go along with Kid Carpet for a bit of joyride, ultimately you’ll wind up with that slightly uneasy feeling that you’re on a jolly trip down a pretty familiar road.