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Simon Breed - The Smitten King Talks

Exposure
Tomorrow’s music today. This issue: Simon Breed

With shades of Scott Walker, Smog and Simon Bonney by way of Julian Cope and John Cale to his intimately epic, full-larynxed crooning, Simon Breed’s wordier than thou late-night troubadouring has been championed by Bad Seed Mick Harvey, the late John Peel and The Magic Numbers. Following several self-released CDs, last year’s ‘The Filth And Wonder Of… mini-album featured a song called ‘Cunts, Pricks, Wankers and Shits.’ A just released full length collection, ‘The Smitten King’s Lament,’ has a fish, a spider and a scorpion lurking in its eloquently constructed magical-realist narratives.

You toured Napoli with Mick Harvey, and are playing there again. So what’s the Italian connection?

I think they’re quite fond of verbose, black-humoured, melancholic song-writers. I’m going over with Rob Ellis, who’s best known as PJ Harvey’s drummer. He won’t be doing the Scottish dates, but I’ll be with a band. A big part of getting such a great reception in Italy is to do with the words. They seem to appreciate my febrile imagination and the poet as auteur, even if it’s quite oblique.

What about the singer/song-writer thing? It’s become such a bastardised term.

Well, I write songs, which then sing, but I’m certainly not James Blunt.

How was supporting The Magic Numbers at The Corn Exchange?

I had a whale of a time, getting away with murder. Then we went bowling.

The new record’s a lot more fleshed out?

I want the next one to be a lot more open and not so controlled, and for the cracks to let the light in.

Simon Breed plays The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Sat March 22; Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow, Sun March 23, supported by Malcolm Ross and The Leopards on both dates. ‘The Smitten King Laments’ is available on Re-Action Records.

The List, March 2008

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