Normally a double-act, Insecure Men has become a solo project for the second release of 2018. After a first album which shares its name with the group (Insecure Men), the two childhood friends Ben Romans-Hopcraft from Childhood and Saul Adamczewski (formerly of the Fat White Family, the Wärmduschers, The Moonlandingz) took a step apart to give Saul the space he needed to follow his passion for karaoke. Karaoke For One:Vol 1 is the first part of a whole collection of covers. "These are my favourite songs. I love to sing them and they're the ones I'd sing if I was doing karaoke right now." Still on the Fat Possum label the gap-toothed Brit is letting down his brown curly hair with some slow and unsubtle synth which has a deceptively polished sound. We have depressing lyrics as normal – but this time they're borrowed. We find the kitsch reggae-pop hit Mysterious Girl by Peter André and Bubbler Ranx (1996) edited beyond recognition, The Carpenters (Rainy Days & Mondays), Springsteen's Streets of Philadelphia, Madame George by Van Morrison, Abner Jay's blues (I'm So Depressed) and even some sadly-overlooked Blaze Foley (Picture Cards Can't Picture You). This cover is probably the most faithful to the original. From obscure ballads of bitterness to the sweetness of world pop, from seventies sourness to nineties kitsch, Saul Adamczewski fits all his choices to 2018 and makes them over with almost nothing – a guitar and a synth – into a polished kind of pop exotica. But there’s always with a whiff of the seedy about them. Simple and powerful. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz