Andi Sexgang

Andi Sexgang's career ever since the 1980s heyday of Sex Gang Children has been, to put it mildly, mixed, with various attempts at a reunion interspersed with solo efforts here and there, none of which have truly captured the delirious heights of songs like "Sebastiane." Still, persistence is a virtue, and Madman in a Basket, his first all-original solo album since 1999, is a sometimes-inspired, sometimes-curious effort that, if nothing else, is uniquely his. The aggressive squeal from the earliest days of Sex Gang Children has long since mellowed into a calmer but still high pitched style mixing spoken word delivery and understated hooks, while the music -- almost all of which Andi made and produced himself, a couple of collaborations aside -- similarly often exchanges delirium for looming, doomy industrial darkness. While a good enough example of what can be done on one's own with the right tools and technology, the truth is that Andi is in a parallel place to Gary Numan these days -- having embraced a compressed-sounding and (thinking on the drum sounds in particular) delicate approach, Andi doesn't venture beyond it much, and the result tends to be monochromatic on the whole. That said, Andi throws in far more curveballs than Numan -- if nothing else a lingering appreciation for Sparks' ear for genre-mashing is clearly evident -- so the demi-jazz lounge kick of "Odin Bites Me" and the creepy music box melodies of "Babes in the Wood" and "No More Words" showcase a twisted playfulness to his advantage. Lyrically, meanwhile, the goulash of ideas presented in song after song -- everything from pagan gods to distinctly untraditional views of Christ, from Hitler to Rambo, from reality TV to Rocky Horror -- suggests a Current 93 view of the universe without the help of an editor. There's an arch humor throughout, but it's not enough to completely make the album work, and the result is a game effort, no failure but no success. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide