Synthpop with a heavy dose of nostalgia
Who He?
Rodney Cromwell is a London-based recording artist who makes a delightful lo-fi synthpop racket with a pile of old analogue kit and a deep appreciation of classic outfits such as Kraftwerk, OMD, New Order and the like. You love him already, right? Wait until you hear this shizz.
Why Rodney Cromwell?
That’s a very good question on many levels. You see, his name isn’t actually Rodney Cromwell and he makes no attempt to pretend otherwise. This is one Adam Cresswell, formerly of early 2000s John Peel favoured folktronica outfit Saloon and, more recently, half of Arthur & Martha alongside singer Alice Hubley, who pops up on Rodders’ joyous debut album, ‘Age Of Anxiety’.
Tell Us More
The loose plan, it appears, was for this album to be Arthur & Martha’s sophomore offering. Seems Adam couldn’t really be fagged, preferring aloofness over leaving the house and social media ubiquity, and Rodney Cromwell was the result of the parting of ways. Says here that ‘Age Of Anxiety’ is an album “for fans of Factory Records, 80s coldwave, and those four guys from Düsseldorf who thought they were robots”.
Sounds good, but is it any cop? Course it is. Choice cuts include the frantic Mode-like ‘One Two Seven’, the magnificent, early New Order-ish, seven-minute ‘Black Dog’, and the Kraftwerkian ‘Barry Was An Arms Dealer’, not that Düsseldorf’s finest ever had a song title that good.
‘Age Of Anxiety’ is out on Happy Robot
