Audiobooks

Now! (in A Minute) 8/10

Wizard and student make gloriously strange debut

Audiobooks are an incongruous pair – seasoned producer David Wrench and Goldsmiths student Evangeline Ling. Performing live, they’re an out-ofcontrol party; Ling Irish dancing, Wrench controlling a pyramid of retro synths. This debut of first-take pop songs crashes those contrasting worlds together in a series of esoteric, danceable, frequently amusing stories about sleeping in gardens (“Hot Salt”), body waxing (“Dance Your Life Away”) and Swansea (“It Get Be So Swansea”). It’s Ling’s surreal poetry – “Grandma Jimmy” details a family holiday including a “car-sick dog” – delivered in a posh accent that make this a real cherishable oddity. That some people will find the whole shtick unpalatable makes it even better.