Cornershop
Playing sitar on a rock record might in itself constitute a political act, for an Asian at least if not for a Beatle. It might also constitute a goof–an early Cornershop single reworks an Elvis oldie as “Seetar Man.” But the sitar’s sinuous metallic drone also mimics much of what the Singhs’ postpunk guitar peers, from the Jesus and Mary Chain to My Bloody Valentine, have achieved through massively orchestrated distortion: namely, a shimmering shadow melody piercing through the sonic overload.
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Though Cornershop’s increasingly Indian-steeped music bears the stamp of cultural authenticity, it probably failed to impart the reality of Asian England to last weekend’s audience. That’s a shame, because Tjinder owns stores of wit and irony to help him navigate the perilous transnational experience. On “Roof Rack” he answers Enoch Powell, the British politician most enduringly hostile to his country’s Asians: “Maybe I can see it through Enoch’s eyes / ‘Cause breaking these borders will build new order.” Powell, who repeatedly called for repatriation, once said, “Like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.” Even the squawk-box treatment of Tjinder’s voice on “Jullander Shere” comments on cultural displacement, purposefully amplifying Punjabi’s unintelligibility to Cornershop’s countrymen.
