Lecube's Perfect Lady
Something about the first few notes of this song sound unmistakably foreign, before you even hear Sicilian born Julien 'Lecube' Barbagallo's soft and enchanting, slightly accented vocals. This song is intriguing from the start, it's clear that Lecube is not just another acoustic singer-songwriter but an intimate storyteller eccentric enough to release a three part waltz on 7" vinyl.
'45 Tours No 2' is the second part of this waltz, consisting of two self-penned tracks, 'Lady Pornograph' and 'If', followed by John Lennon cover, 'I've just seen a face'. Despite it's name, there's nothing seedy about 'Lady Pornograph', sounding to the innocent ear like a beautiful folk influenced love song. This is the kind of thoughtful music you'd put on late at night to forget about life and absorb yourself in Lecube's "fragile combination of glances and breaths, collected randomly on local buses and unmade beds".
Beginning with sparse acoustic guitar and an 'Albatross' style motif, 'Lady Pornograph' gradually gathers momentum and reaches a climax with a powerful distorted chord which lulls you into thinking its the start of massive rock outro. And then it stops. It's almost too perfect, leaving you wanting more of the enchanting 'Lady Pornograph'. And then it starts again, and it's not as good as you remembered. Why Lecube felt it necessary to repeat the verse again is beyond me.
It's at this point that '45 Tours No 2' starts to go down hill. 'Lady Pornograph' is overdone, 'If' sounds like the amateurish cries of a tormented student, and although 'I've just seen a face' is a perfectly good cover it should have been done by someone else. With a blasting harmonica in 'If' and a folk jig going on in 'I've just seen a face', these tracks may be closer to Lecube's rural roots but they are much too brash to appear alongside the beauty of 'Lady Pornograph'.