Jarvis Cocker & Chilly Gonzales

Room 29

DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON. CD/DL/LP

Sparksian piano/voice study in LA hotel froideur. Since Pulp sputtered out in 2002, their beloved mouthpiece has beaten a characteristically haphazard path of variable solo records, occasional oddball one-offs (who could forget Relaxed Muscle?), and reunion shows yet to spark an eighth Pulp album. Now Cocker materialises alongside outsidethe-box ivory-tinkler Gonzales for a moody song cycle set inside the eponymous chamber – once occupied by the likes of Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow, no less – at swish Sunset Strip auberge, the Chateau Marmont. The title track establishes a scene of This Is Hardcore-style solitary paranoia (“where do germs come from?” our hero gibbers), while Chilly G veers between jaunty foyer tootling and Erik Satie abstraction. Quintessential Hollywood types saunter through – the fallen rich kid (Clara); the on-the-make hottie (Bombshell) – until an accordingly fazed Jarvis winds up eating “ice cream as main course”. A familiar narrative, perhaps, but rendered with uniquely mordant wit.