Sir Vincent Lone – Songs For Lonely Americans

Peter Felkel opens his review with Leven’s story, which seems to him far too good not to tell. Two years ago, Leven says, he realised he was writing many more songs than he could ever record and release, especially nowadays when one brings out a studio album only every 18 months. Being a brilliant writer, he found that annoying, so he went to Martin Goldschmidt, the boss of his label, to ask whether he could make more records. Goldschmidt said no. Leven pointed to the Beatles, who released four albums in a year without anyone saying it was too much. Goldschmidt replied: “Jackie, it’s not 1967 any more, and you’re not the Beatles.” At that moment, Felkel writes, Sir Vincent Lone was born, Leven’s alter ego.

The debut Songs for Lonely Americans sounds, “surprise!”, exactly like Jackie himself: again that fairly unique mix of pop and poetry, folk and soul familiar from Forbidden Songs of the Dying West, Fairytales for Hard Men and the other “lovely” Leven albums. The opener “Moscow Train” is a typical heart-storming song, folk underlaid with a kind of hip-hop beat and synth hiss. The protest song “The War Crimes of Ariel Sharon”, by contrast, grates by the second listen, “Straight Outta Caledonia” could easily have come from “a dud like Chris de Burgh”, the spooky “Balamory Death Chant” sounds like a Gregorian chant, and the remaining songs shimmer in quiet acoustic-guitar splendour and enchant with fine melodies.

Verdict: Sir Vincent Lone cannot add all that much memorable to “Master Leven’s” sound cosmos. Release date: 8 September 2006. (Other sources tell the origin of the pseudonym differently.)