SANANDA MAITREYA
THE PEGASUS PROJECT: PEGASUS & THE SWAN TREEHOUSE
As Sananda Maitreya makes it clear in this issue, his first UK show for 22 years this summer doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be rolling out the hits. He’s got more than enough music to keep everyone entertained since re-emerging in 2005 with the music he dubs “Post-Millennial Rock”.
Truth is, Maitreya could dust off a show exclusively from his 13th album and it would be a sensation. As with many of his recent LPs, there’s a lot of material to get through: 41 tracks, including a dozen or so alternative versions. Coupled with the fact it completes a trilogy of albums based on the myth of Prometheus’ exile from Mount Olympus, and you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a forbidding prospect. Not a bit of it. Not so much an album as an experience, Sananda’s Pegasus gallops along.
While the would-be Bond theme dramatics of Mr Magoo are designed as the opening of Sananda’s planned musical about his own Promethean banishment from the music industry, that’s the only explicit link to a more overarching story. Dive straight in here, and a musical boxset binge awaits.
“Post-Millennial Rock” is something of a misnomer, as Maitreya masters a host of styles. Camden Town and first single The Birthday Song are confident strutting rock’n’roll, while at the other extreme Time Takes Time has the opulence of a classic Disney theme. The lyrics are just as unpredictable, too, ranging from the empathetic hard-won wisdom in Life Will Go On to the addictive dayglo pop of The Things U Like arriving wrapped in a tale explicit enough to make Sananda’s old friend Prince blush. Bondage and Being Watched are similarly lewd and similarly catchy, while Nice Things lives up to its title, a neat Sisyphean tale under the accompanying vintage funk power.
Sananda’s former backing singers Beatrice Baldaccini and Luisa Corna take centre stage on a pair of operatic ballads, but this is Maitreya doing things his way again.
If this were another, less polarising singer, people would hail it as an eccentric masterpiece. Don’t let Sananda Maitreya’s complicated story overlook how he’s still delivering soulpopfunkrock infectiousness with ease. JE