mute records | mute285 | 2002

I actually felt quite embarrassed listening to this second single from Anita Lane‘s appallingly-titled Sex O’Clock. Not because it’s a terrible track, far from it, but because the lyrics are so overtly sexual (example lyric: ‘Call me up on the erogenous zone / All night kundalini telephone.‘) – it is a bit like how uncomfortable you felt as a teenager when the passion levels rose a bit too high in a film you were watching with your parents. Or maybe that was just me.

No two ways about it, Lane here is feeling horny, many of the lyrics delivered as if midway through a hazy passionate clinch. Repeated choruses with Mick Harvey of ‘Do that thing / That thing that you do.‘ urge the sexual momentum forward. Musically, Harvey has constructed a song of considerable beauty, a classic soul groove with a host of Motown strings and percussion-driven beat; think Marvin Gaye duetting with Serge Gainsbourg. Classy, subversive, blatant – perfect.

The solitary B-side ‘Look At The Sun’, co-written and produced by Johnny Klimek, is a countrified ballad, a thing of remarkable beauty. Lane’s vocal is perfect for the track, which really draws out the emotional quality of the song. In fact, the song could have been delivered just as successfully by her former beau Nick Cave.

First published 2004; re-edited 2015.

(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence