Rosalie Cunningham is having fun. It’s in every note, word and musical gesture on her third solo LP, the cinematically-styled To Shoot Another Day.
It hasn’t always been the case – she’s admitted that her 2019 self-titled debut and 2022’s Two-Piece Puzzle are trauma-inducing enough for her to give them the swerve until her courage is plucked up. That’s peculiar, as they’re high-calibre works; but after leaving Purson in 2017 – the psych noir group she’d founded in 2011 – Cunningham was finding her feet, having been mistakenly viewed as just the figurehead for the band and not its driving force.
Six years on, she has a wealth of experience, from composition to touring to music biz clout, and support and inspiration from life and work partner Rosco Wilson. She’s led from the front, producing and playing guitars, bass, keyboards and percussion, and also performing expressive lead and backing vocals.
Aided by former Purson sticksman Raphael Mura, with Wilson co-producing and supplying additional guitar and drums, Cunningham’s ready for an extreme close-up with some of her best songs yet – confident, comfortable and most definitely created for her own amusement.
If the nod to the world of secret agent James Bond hasn’t been grasped by its name, then the titular opening track will give it away with a none-too-subtle John Barry-meets-Macca Live And Let Die homage. She sings of a person wrapped up in their own bubble, starring in their own play: ‘wearing a briefcase and tie, I feel like a spy.’
The Bond moment is fleeting; Cunningham confesses to doing a Sgt. Pepper’s, beginning and ending with something conceptual, only to fill the bit in between with other stuff.
Soon we’re off to Timothy Martin’s Conditioning School, a comment on power, corruption and indoctrination – with a laugh-out-loud line about a honey-glazed pig who’s in charge – set to a terrifically tight 60s KPM library groove in the vein of Keith Mansfield and Johnny Hawksworth.
Denim Eyes starts with a Strawberry Fields see-saw Mellotron part. It transitions into a bright little Pilot-meets-Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da pop ballad
The KPM style continues with the song to make a date to: Heavy Pencil, a swinger that turns Van der Graaf organ-heavy midway, with a motif from Henry Mancini’s The Pink Panther slipped under the door by the end. Here Gong’s sax and flute player Ian East bursts onto the scene, leaving his musical monogrammed glove as a calling card.
Good To Be Damned sets the yarn of some sort of domestically incarcerated she-beast, her parents drowning in sorrow at her existence, to a funereal-paced gothic dance that quickly becomes high-camp Cockney Rebel cabaret. Delivered with a smirk, Cunningham’s she-beast has a demon lover, and her outlook is actually quite cheery, thank you very much.
Taking the tempo down is the sleazy jazz belter In The Shade Of The Shadows, warning of a nefarious character’s dirty deeds, done happily and remorselessly. There’s more from East on sax, and pianist David Woodcock lands some colourful Mike Garson-like progressions.
The central thrust isn’t the ‘concept’ as such (which doesn’t really exist) but Cunningham herself
Next, 70s softcore porn soundtracks light up The Smut Peddler, a short sexedelic instrumental interlude where Vampyros Lesbos snuggles with Black Sabbath, Wilson sparking on lead guitar. It was so-titled because it’s a filthy riff – and Wilson’s pet name.
The Beatles’ influence is never far away. Denim Eyes starts with a Strawberry Fields see-saw Mellotron part. It transitions into a bright little Pilot-meets-Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da pop ballad that’s as throwaway as its creator intended, acting as a bridge to the meatier glam-rock crunch of Spook Racket, where Cunningham’s vaudeville carny characterisation from Purson returns to ply a trade in paranormal fakery. Flavours of The Doors, Uriah Heep, Ghost and Tull abound in this standout track, fading out like a Pied Piper prancing into the distance.
Penultimately, Stepped Out Of Time is a pretty, old-timey waltz recalling Neil Young or The Band in a poignant story about what seems to be fading glamour and mortality. But the tongue goes firmly back into Cunningham’s cheek to finish, with the grand, theatrical The Premiere. Referencing the modern-life-is-rubbish faffery of the process of releasing work online to a response of one hand clapping, it’s relatable to most artists and creative types.
With the credits rolling it’s apparent that the central thrust of To Shoot Another Day isn’t the ‘concept’ as such (which doesn’t really exist) but Cunningham herself – her style, personality and imagination in creating one of 2024’s most playful and individual records. Expertly played, seriously plotted, it’s well worth securing a front-row seat for.
• To Shoot Another Day is on sale now via Esoteric.
