The Dark Stuff
The Auteurs “Unsolved Child Murder”
Wrapping up Stuck in the 90s Week (with an Interruption for a Slightly Surreal Waking Dream) at PCR, I wanted to share a magnificently crafted oddity from the Auteurs.
I originally checked out 1996’s After Murder Park on the recommendation of someone on a message board. The set-up sounded fascinating enough: the sound of a dour, dyspeptic dandy of British pop (don’t call it Britpop!) as recorded in that one studio where those four guys crossed the street that one time and it was an awesome album cover, with the supervision of Maestro Steve Albini, noisenik, misanthrope and razor-sounds recordist par excellence.
The record’s great but I think, outside of a smallish cult, unfairly neglected. Then again, it takes a certain quixotic, or maybe self-sabotaging, streak to make a major-label record that tackles unpleasant subjects like plane crashes, abusive lovers, terrorism and, yes, the kidnapping and murder of a child as told from the POV of both the family and the criminals. It’s really more of the perfect recipe for a cult record. I guess that’s just Auteurs auteur(?) Luke Haines doing his thing.
So we can nod to Motown and the entire tradition of happy-sounding songs about operatically tragic emotions and appreciate the acoustic bounce of “Unsolved Child Murder.” The song chronicles the uncertainty and pressure faced by the family of a kidnapped kid, as reflected through the eyes of a sibling who understands maybe a little more than the parents suspect.
Somehow, amid the subtle string flourishes and french horn fills, an upbeat musical treatment injects enough air into the proceedings to flesh out their torture and make it bearable. They’re not sure whether to grieve, they’re a public spectacle, they’re ready to leave town to escape it all, they’re lapsing into illogic and superstition. Most poignantly, the bridge catches the surviving kid pondering the unfinished statement, “If I die before my parents die.”
In some ways it actually harkens back, in spirit, to the explorations of the ugly side you’d find on an old record by Big Black, Albini’s first prominent band. Of course BB’s proto-industrial postpunk matched the nasty of the narrative (stuff like, you know, taking inspiration from the true story of kids setting someone on fire) with harsh sonics.
There’s even more of a perverse thrill, a slight recoil of unease and a glint of sad sympathy to a melodic, almost stately pop song that turns over the rocks of the damaged human soul to see what lurks underneath.
