Bain Wolfkind - Music For Lovers and Gangsters

Bain Wolfkind may be familiar to many for his work with Der Blutharsch. He has been their live drummer for some time and his vocal prowess featured on their latest release When Did Wonderland End? Prior to that he was a member of Novo Homo who recorded for Albin Julius' Hau Ruck label. Back in his homeland of Australia he featured in Blood & Iron, a martial industrial project that included John Murphy and Mark Morte of Beastianity. Music For Lovers and Gangsters is the first full album from Bain Wolfkind, following the Love Letters EP his debut for Hau Ruck, and I'm surprised more hasn't been written on this album.

Music For Loves and Gangsters is steeped in noir-Americana, dripping in sleaze inhabited by low-lifers, pimps, whores, mobmen and killers. Wolfkind's sand and sawdust vocal recalls Tom Waits and Jim Foetus, while the music touches upon the aforementioned along with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Leather Nun and The Gun Club. It conjures up visions of dark alleyways, nightime streets populated with hazy neon bar room signs and strip joints. A late night sex-killing can be found on 'Burlesque' cloaked in an edgey noir soundtrack. Wolfkind's takes his cues from the seedy underbelly characterised by American pulp crime novels. Some of the tracks feature electro sequences, a hangover from Wolfkind's work with Novo Homo, but where Music For Lovers and Gangsters works best is when Wolfkind's hate-filled drawl is drenched in reverbed guitar and rockabilly bass throb such as the murder ballad 'Shiny Steel Blade'. Similarly with its guitar twang and organ chime 'My Name Is Poison' is a bleak biographical sketch of this sadistic sonofabitch. The bluesy workout of Black John' with harmonica drone tells the tale of a hick town revenge execution.

Like in the books of James Ellroy redemption isn't something that you are going to find here but as a soundtrack to American crime novels this works particularly well. Music For Lovers and Gangsters where hate calls the shots. Great stuff. For more information go to www.derblutharsch.com or www.bainwolfkind.com