PICK OF THE WEEK: The Cleaners From Venus
For fans of Guided by Voices, The Kinks, XTC, Elliott Smith
2024 will go down in our personal history as the year we discovered The Cleaners from Venus, the project of English DIY singer/songwriter Martin Newell (born 4 March 1953).
We aren’t sure how knowledge of this lo-fi pioneer escaped us previously, and in a very pedestrian turn of events, we actually first encountered The Cleaners from Venus through our Spotify algorithm earlier this year. Nonetheless - the world that opened up to us after first hearing the Cleaners song NIGHT STARVATION is seemingly unlimited and kinda life-changing…
Much of Newell’s recorded output is lo-fi 4 track song recordings, giving the early tracks especially a hyper saturated charm. However, later in his career, Newell explored a slicker sound on his Andy Partridge produced solo album “The Greatest Living Englishman” and it is gorgeous too. This is truly the songwriters’ songwriter.
As we heard Mac DeMarco say recently about Newell’s deep catalogue: “For me and other young people, to have this well open up, It’s like drinking a drink you can drink for days, the water wont stop”.
On that note we leave you with a Spotify playlist we personally made, curating some of our favourite songs by Newell in his different forms (The Cleaners from Venus, The Brotherhood of Lizards, Martin Newell) on over 30 albums.
Dig in and drink from the well!
“Night Starvation” was the first Cleaners song I heard and still my favorite. That’s not to say that there isn’t an absurd amount of classic-level tracks throughout the catalog.
Night Starvation was a fake ailment concocted by the Horlick’s company to promote their powdered malt drink. The idea being that drinking Horlick’s before bedtime would protect the sleeper from the ravages of the bogus condition!