Classic Album: The All Seeing I, Pickled Eggs & Sherbet
London Records, 1999
The people of Sheffield have always marched to the beat of their own drum – a drum often played by a one-armed man (yes, Def Leppard). It’s the home to bleep factory, Warp, as well as comedy Yamaha-tinkler, John Shuttleworth. And over the years the weird and wonderful music emanating from the area has challenged the very notions of what it means to go ‘Pop’. Which brings us to the curious case of The All Seeing I. Comprising programming whiz Dean Honer, musician Jason Buckle, and all-round vibes controller DJ Parrot, this outfit were responsible for some of the most Steel City beats of their generation. Over the course of their only album, Pickled Eggs & Sherbet, they brought together Industrial and Dancehall ( I Walk), Big Band Swing ( Beat Goes On), and Cuckolded Vegas Turbo Lounge ( Walk Like A Panther). It was as daft as a brush and as infectious as lice.
“I think it just was what it was,’ shrugs The All Seeing Dean Honer. “It was lo-fi, homemade bedroom production, mixed with the various influences that we brought to it. We had some Sheffield electronics in there, some working men’s club cabaret, all mixed with the lyrical wizardry of Jarvis Cocker.”
Ah yes, the Britpop anachronism penned many lines. As a city native he knew the tone of The I from the off, dropping grubby lyrics about suspect stains on a cheating wife’s clothes that sounded great when sung by (why not?) faded ’70s crooner and South Yorkshire expat, Tony Christie.
Add to the mix the band’s missuses on backing vocals, The Human League’s Phil Oakey popping up at one point, and the bonkers samples and cheap electronics at the core, and you have an album that is in turns odd, amazing, old, new, funny, fearless, and somehow, effortless.
“I thought we were making Pop music in our own upside-down way,” says Jason Buckle. “It didn’t then, and still doesn’t, sound like anything else. We were one of the last of the ‘sample ’n’ get away with it’ type bands. I just can’t believe that we got such odd sounding things in the charts and on Top of the Pops!”