Not quite Electronica. Not quite Indie. What is it about The Two Lone Swordsmen that makes them so bloody difficult to pin a tail on? The fact they’re on Warp Records – home of Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, Plaid and Vincent Gallo? You’d think that would be enough. But it’s not, although tracks like ‘Faux’, ‘Sick When We Kiss’ and ‘The Valve’ do go along way toward reclaiming the cold industrial pulse of Warp’s original Sheffield avante-pop heritage (early Human League, Caberet Voltaire) and it’s as absurdly punky as that era too. Could it be the squidgey, growling dub of tracks like ‘Stack Up’ or the spectral electricity of the Topley Bird, Maxinquaye ‘Taste Of Our Flames’? We’re getting closer. Then it must be the garagey guitar and bass of the album’s punky riffing subtext; the tracks where it sounds like Peter Hook, Graham Coxon, and Fischerspooner have all been locked in the back of the tour bus overnight and come up with a loosely catastrophic beast that exists somewhere between the Stranglers and Tricky (‘Sex Beat’, ‘Formica Fuego’). Nope, not that either. So what is it?
It’s the fact that these boys don’t give a shit what they do as long as it sounds good, that’s what it is.
Andrew Weatherall, one half of Two Lone Swordsmen produced the classic Primal Scream ‘Screamadelica’ album and this should be reason enough for persevering with their belligerent and scruffy sex appeal.