Menko Konings - Love Songs

A super-addictive collection of solo recordings made by S.M Nurse's Menko Konings under various aliases between 1984-1986, all twelve tracks on vinyl for the first time. Primitive is perhaps the operative word here, Konings working with a limited array of tools - little more than a guitar, bass, four track and synth - and a sharply defined sense of playfulness. No doubting there's a lot of fun being had here, both for artist and audience, Konings' performances fashioned with a wry smile and an intuitive understanding of just the right balance of high drama and tongue-in-cheek piss-taking (do note that quite a few of these tracks were taken from a tape called Dedicated To Charles Bronson). If these are indeed love songs, then Konings knows laughter is the best medicine... There's a fair bit more NYC (specifically Lou Reed and Alan Vega, guys who also knew their way around a punchline) in here than you might have ordinarily connected with the Dutch underground, a little bluesy artrock croon added to the usual minimal wave elegance, not a million miles removed from Peter Gutteridge's Pure actually. Quite a concept that - romance built in the image of Lou and Alan. Hard to argue against it, all things considered. Konings really was on to something. Shame it was cut short to just these twelve tracks, but twelve songs the other way and we'd have had nothing at all.