RIVER TOWNS TRACKS... 1  OFF THEM METAL WALLS 2  STRANDED MAN 3  COOLER GIRL (BLUES) 4  YOU'RE A FURY 5  SHAKERS INN 6  THE BEARS RUN 7  LAST CALL 8  CALLING SHELTER 9  LONESOME PRIDE PLAY IT AGAIN SAM 527.5006.20  ALBUM

The second album was released in certain territories in Europe to yet again huge critical acclaim, however, Latifs' personal life hit rock bottom and Mystery Slang was put on hold until…. Sugar Shack Records UK have released the second album. Two of the original tracks have been replaced and it is issued under the working title 'Purple The Sails'...

PURPLE THE SAILS TRACKS... 1  COOLER GIRL BLUES 2  YOU'RE A FURY 3  SHAKERS INN 4  THE BEARS RUN 5  LAST CALL 6  CALLING SHELTER 7  LONESOME PRIDE 8  ANGEL OF DEATH 9  THE HAWK SUGAR  SHACK RECORDS UK ACDR 006  CD LP

MYSTERY SLANG REVIEWS... VENUS GROVE (Virgin) Weirdness sells on a good day and this year it will be courtesy of Mystery Slang, a man with a vision hatched in a booze bottle and given flight in a lot of bad dreams. This debut album will shift units, comprising a number of narratives set in Gardez' West London stomping grounds, it begins with 'I'm mad at you', a head on collision between Robbie Robertson and Iggy Pop, but the overview demands a comparison to Nick Cave. Yes, Gardez is funny, but not ha-ha funny, his streams of consciousness articulate but muddied and suitable for strong swimmers only - 'They All Ran Like Numbers', a languid Portobello travelogue, is genuinely spooky and, in essence, some sort of animated novella. (Ralph Traitor, Sounds) VENUS GROVE (Virgin) Sifting through the threadbare, Raymond Chandler - style biography for clues, the most - if anything at all - that can be unearthed about Mystery Slang is that the guy holding all the cards goes by the name of Latif Gardez, a whiskey drinking itinerant Scot of Arab/Italian parentage. Listening to Venus Grove sheds more light on things, revealing someone with one ear tuned in to Tom Wait's electric blues, the other to The Doors and dayglo rock. The strength of this debut is the uncluttered spaciousness of the arrangements, giving the spoken narrative lyrics ample room to swirl around a repetitive riff and loose, jazzy chords, or to ride a swelling Hammond wave over a crisp, bluesy guitar. It's a collection of instantly appealing and powerfully compelling songs. (Paul Henderson, Q Magazine) VENUS GROVE (Virgin) I once spent the afternoon in the company of Latif Gardez, the force at the centre of Mystery Slang. During a painfully protracted three hours in his West London flat, Latif proceeded to smoke shopfuls of Marlboro and drink eight times his bodyweight in Irish whiskey. Worse, he kept staring at me with the kind of eyes that suggested he was about to a) put me on the evening menu, or b) involve me in the sort of extra-curricular activities normally the preserve of Bangkok waitresses and fat insurance salesmen. I believe the term is 'scared shitless'. Heavens parted and the sun beamed out of the clouds when I left that flat alive, I can tell you, but the whole sorry experience did alert me to one undeniable fact vis-à-vis the magnificently enigmatic Mr Gardez: this was no ordinary song-and-dance man. Throughout, Latif roars like Morrison after the Paris bathtub incident. Is it any good though? And dare I lavish enough praise on this man when, sad to say, I was stupid enough to give him my phone number? Fuck, I dunno, file under illustrious Nick Cave Impressionist, and let's just hope God's on my side this time. (Paul Lester, Melody Maker)