There were no tickets on sale for the launch party of Johnny Borrell’s new single ‘Black God’ back in September. To get in, fans had to provide a hand-drawn mandala, an ancient Indian symbol representing the universe. It’s the same deal to get a download of the song: you draw a mandala, scan it and email it to Borrell’s label, Atlantic Culture, and they send the track right back free of charge.
‘Black God’ – the video for which is below – is the weirdest the mop-top star of 2005 has got since Razorlight. It’s weirder than the time he recruited these guys for a patched up line-up of his old band; weirder than when he wore a huge prosthetic nose in the the video for ‘Cyrano Masochiste’ and sang, Freemasons build with bricks/ Savages build with sticks/ You built this song down in Harvey Nicks”.
That song came from 2013’s debut solo album ‘Borrell 1’, which was largely mocked in the press (NME said it featured “enough saxophone to make you wonder if he’s lost a bet of some sort”). Since then, the 35-year-old singer has recruited a new band, Zazou, and released last year’s ‘Artificial Night’ EP. He’s also played a lot of odd-sounding gigs, including a slot at this summer’s Whistable Oyster Festival. With brass, piano and mad chanting, this rag-tag line-up of musicians – who mostly look like Pirates Of The Caribbean extras – have legitimised Borrell’s eccentricity. If you’ve seen them live (they’re actually pretty good) you’ll know this is a properly tight, properly committed band.
The thing they seem most committed to is bluesy bar-room rock with a hippy twist: the kind of thing you can listen to in hessian robes while drinking mead. Which brings us back to ‘Black God’. It was directed by fashion photographer Ruth Hogben in the band’s Studio Z in east London. Borrell says it’s designed to be watched full screen, and after doing so for five minutes, your eyes will sting. It’s like a Johnny Borrell magic eye puzzle. His hair flops around and his bandmates hammer their instruments until the song eventually builds into a psychedelic (in a ‘round the campfire’ way’) climax with chants of ”salvation”. As for weird lyrics, he questions why, “If you’re in no way poor” you would dream of owning an “Aston Martin or a private plane, houses, or a beautiful wife, a Maserati or a helicopter”. Which is probably fair enough. But the best thing about it is that, even though he’s a hippy now, Borrell still wears the same battered white plimsolls he did 10 years ago.
