Momus Brings Craft to Social Criticism

Nick Currie is an over-educated Brit who goes by the stage name of Momus and concocts cynical, emotionally oblique pop songs that connect the dots between French lounge music, Japanese pop and class-conscious English rock. If that doesn’t exactly sound like your idea of fun, think again. Momus is one of Britain’s most savagely clever songwriters; his LunaPark performance on Thursday was a scathing societal manifesto gussied up as a crowd-pleasing cabaret act.

A spindly scarecrow whose eye-patch added an element of benign menace to the proceedings, Momus is another in a long line of British songwriters whose songs throw a mirror up to the hypocrisies and anxieties of contemporary society. Consumerism, sexual repression, teenage self-absorption and the impossibility of love were all big themes for him on Thursday, but they were all couched in tinkly, self-consciously cheesy arrangements that provided an ironic counterpoint to Momus’ scabrous lyrics.

What makes Momus something more than just another soapbox social critic, however, is his love of sophisticated song craft. Singing in a voice that falls somewhere between Robert Wyatt’s wispy croon and Serge Gainsbourg’s disaffected cool, Momus has a keen instinct for what makes a great tune; his songs range from frothy Space Age bachelor pad music to funky trip-hop and lush pop. He’s that rare performer: a subversive with a soft melodic touch.