If you spend the evening with a bottle of whisky instead of your sweetheart, the tune you bellow out in the wee hours - with arms 'round a snake oil merchant and a boxing ballerina - could well be a ditty from the mind of Al Duvall. Al's wicked vaudevillian hits are crafted on banjo, kazoo, and various percussive detritus. These 'gentle but deadly' songs are drawn from the working-class music of pre-war America, blending jug-band, medicine show, music-hall, and Victorian parlor ballads. Al delivers a loving backhand to the fringe dweller in this expertly crafted collection of aural ephemera. With an overdose of morbid puns and sly innuendo, 'Recluses Unite' is the perfect primer for any aspiring vagrant. (label info)

"inventively twisted black-comedy lyrics, throwing in dirty punchlines and shades of modern depravity that our Edwardian ancestors would have blanched at. There's also however an equally strong streak of utter weirdness and lowbrow surrealism, not too far away from the malarkey of Charles Gocher or Revd Fred Lane." Ed Pinsent, Sound Projector.