- Last year, Rick Wakeman performed his 1973 concept album The Six Wives Of Henry VIII at Hampton Court in Surrey. The prog rock pompadour and Yes mainstay was accompanied by the English Chamber Choir, Orchestra Europa, six women—one for each queen—and actor Brian Blessed. All of which, it must be said, makes one man with a 303 look a little bit unambitious in contrast.
Comparing Rick Wakeman with Richard Wigglesworth might seem a tad unfair. But the latter practically invites you to do so by claiming that Merri Portland—his debut album as Tudor Acid—is also a concept album about Tudor England. It's supposedly inspired by the fact that Wigglesworth grew up near Chenies Manor in Buckinghamshire—a palace supposedly haunted by Anne Boleyn—although you'd be hard-pressed to identify anything particularly Tudor about the music of Merri Portland, with the possible exception of the classical overtones of closing track "Chive."
Wigglesworth is interested in a different kind of English heritage, namely the late '80s and early '90s bleep sound of Warp Records. But the reason Merri Portland ultimately fails isn't because it feels like a historical relic, but more because it comes in as many bits as an old pot someone's just dug out of the ground. There are 25 tracks here, but the majority are simply half-formed ideas clocking in at under three minutes. "Truth Senses," for example, sounds like the middle of a great deep house track that simply misses a beginning and end, while you're desperately hoping that the doom-laden ambient of "Waiting for a Second" is going to turn into something else before if fades out after barely a minute.
It's almost as if you're expected to put these pieces together yourself—thinking that "Lonsdale Quay" would make a great intro to "Raynor Lounge" say—which would be fine if Merri Portland was being flogged as a bag of DJ tools. When it purports to be an album, though, you can't help feeling that making it coherent is Wigglesworth's job, not yours. What's most infuriating is that when he does go the distance, he can create some fantastic music: "Cellular" is a kaleidoscope of rhythmic and melodic trickery up there with the best of Aphex Twin, and "Shimmering Phat" could almost be Orbital in miniature. There's great potential here, provided that Wigglesworth can commit to something for longer than a few moments. Come to think of it, though, that was always Henry VIII's problem as well.
Tracklist 01. College Chronic
02. Merri Portland
03. Base Introder
04. Cellular
05. Truth Senses
06. Ethereal
07. Merri Poignant
08. Endangered Species
09. Supersition LV
10. Blue Smoke
11. Waiting For A Second
12. Pheren
13. CTS
14. Capilano
15. Epiece
16. Lonsdale Quay
17. Eclar
18. Shimmering Phat
19. Slowburn
20. Raynor Lounge
21. Kitchen Sink
22. Floodlit Buildings
23. Chive
24. Twilight
25. Pastoral