Baxter Dury, Delilah Holliday, and Étienne de Crécy - B.E.D.

Baxter Dury, Delilah Holliday, and Étienne de Crécy - B.E.D.

It is rare that the offspring of a successful athlete/artist/whatever manages to step successfully out of the shadow of their parents. Yet Baxter Duty, son of the late wordsmith Ian Dury (the man who put ‘Sex and Drugs and Rock n Roll’ in the Oxford dictionary) is now reaching even higher levels than his father. An aficionado of electronic and experimental music, Baxter Dury injects a dose of independence and spirit into his latest music, taking it from enjoyable, past impressive, onto downright essential. Joining forces with French dance pioneer Étienne de Crécy and vocalist Delilah Holliday, Dury is on rare form for one of the more remarkable albums of 2018.

Subverting the idea that the beat should be the most important aspect, Dury’s deadpan spoken word delivery over the top of dark instrumentals makes even the dire and dour suitable for the club. The most intriguing part of the album is this choice to wax lyrical over what should be the driving focus of the LP. Dury’s voice aches with a believable pathos and could be the only suitable accompaniment to his observational, nihilistic storytelling. Dury seems to have inherited his father's penchant for making the stream of consciousness so palatable and urgent.


A seemingly effortless lyrical illustration of modern-day minutiae, and the dark underbelly of human emotion brings a hint of New Order and their post-post-apocalyptic dance party aesthetic to mind. Like all good electronic albums, however, there is a vast horizon of emotions. From the cocktail of broken hearts, lies and existential dread in Flying away to the cruel halls of Only My Honesty… which reads like a poem but hits like a heavyweight. The most impressive release by Dury yet, B.E.D. is razor sharp, witty and dripping in rancour. Synthy, industrial and flavoured with a hint of the tropics, this is the dancing track for the nukes falling. In the face on impending and unavoidable fate, you might as well dance. I know what I’ll be swaying to.

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