Julian Cope, Village Underground

There is no one in the British rock pantheon quite like Julian Cope. Photographer, poet, writer, musicologist, occultist, expert in neo-lithic monuments – Cope has come to be defined as much by his extra-musical pursuits as his musical output. To celebrate the release of his new compilation Trip Advizor, which collects highlights of his multifarious career from 1999 to the present day, Cope will play a single gig in Shoreditch’s Village Underground. No fan should miss out; whether stripped down to his underwear or festooned like a shaman, Cope has always been an idiosyncratic and engaging performer. Expect tracks from his mythological late-90s work on the Norse god Odin, his garage rock-inflected collection Dark Orgasm and his recent anarcho-punk songs.
Cope launched into the public consciousness as the ragamuffin-haired frontman of The Teardrop Explodes, adding a gentle dash of Syd Barrett-esque psychedelia to the geometric strictures of post-punk. When the band disintegrated in 1983 amidst LSD excesses, he embarked on a remarkable solo career. Initially hewing close to the band’s sound while delving even further into the far out sounds of the late-60s, Cope subsequently dabbled with mainstream pop-rock and lo-fi acoustic mumblings. With 1991’s Peggy Suicide, he hit upon his signature sound, a blend of psychedelia, funk and house influences.
Ever since, he has released a dazzling array of both solo and collaborative works, while engaging in a multiplicity of other pursuits. His book Krautrocksampler (1995) is regarded as the ultimate initiation to the genre, while The Modern Antiquarian (1998) and The Megalithic European (2004) are respected gazetteers to ancient sites in Britain and Europe. Cope’s most recent album Revolutionary Suicide (2013) is perhaps his most political work, with searing tracks such as ‘Russian Revolution Blues’ and ‘The Armenian Genocide’ excavating past calamities. Completed on the day of Thatcher’s funeral, it’s like a psychedelic folk version of Crass.