I Trawl The Megahertz “My relationship with prog is a complex thing, which has to do with my feelings about the 70s,” muses Paddy McAloon. “That period was very, very interesting. I reject the whole typical BBC documentary cliché that it was a wizard in a cape playing whizzy synthesisers.
“There was much more – you could go along and see something like and , which was highly theatrical. That in itself was terribly intriguing. I’m a big believer in what they call ‘guilty pleasures,’ though I think that’s a silly phrase.
“Okay, some people mock that era, or genre, for other reasons – I get that; yes, sure, it sometimes went too far. But there is something there which shows a purity of intention. And I find that admirable.
They were young people, remember. Just like the , when young, were trying to do their own thing. “Even Genesis themselves put it down now – ‘Oh, we didn’t have girlfriends so we wrote about mythological characters.
’ Yes, but anyone can write about their girlfriends. It’s fascinating to see what they did there.” With his snowy-white beard and long hair, McAloon has something of the wizard about himself.
No cape, sure, but if your idea of Prefab Sprout has them frozen in the 80s as a swooning indie pop outfit circa , you’re missing out. His body of work has taken a variety of twists and turns, and as a writer/composer his ambition has ranged from minimalism to the grandiose. His recently rereleased album is a strange, sedu.
