The Jazz Butcher

★★★★

Dr Cholmondley Repents: A-sides, B-sides And Seasides

FIRE. CD/ DL

A beautiful elegy in the wake of Pat Fish’s untimely death in October.

From the outset, The Jazz Butcher viewed singles as separate entities, a place where Pat Fish’s most oddball impulses could coexist with his innate melodic sense. First single and its flip, Southern Mark Smith and Jazz Butcher Meets Count Dracula, are perfect examples: the first inspired by a forgotten pub joke about Blue Aeroplanes’ Gerard Langley; the second from a dream Fish had about watching Dracula on TV with the Count himself. Musical allies, meanwhile, include Jonathan Richman – they do a great Roadrunner – and Robert Wyatt, who said, “Anyone can make avant-garde records but it takes a genius to write a pop song.” As The Jazz Butcher, Pat Fish combined both, as this wonderful box of singles, flip sides and more attests.