MY SPEEDING HEART / CHAMPAGNE AND VALIUM

One of the original Canterbury scene characters, guitarist, bassist and singer-songwriter Kevin Ayers, formerly of The Wilde Flowers and Soft Machine (from which he departed after the 1968 debut album), did some charming solo albums between 1969 and 1974. After that period his artistic level notably decreased. Diamond Jack and the Queen of Pain (1983) is his tenth solo album. Safe to say it has almost nothing to do with the Canterbury style, not to mention prog. It's a commercially produced, synthetic pop-rock album of its time and it even features Linn drum programming. Both songs of this single are from that album.

'My Speeding Heart' is an uptempo rocker that sounds very American, not least because of the female backing vocals. The whole song consists mostly of the song title repeated over and over. Kevin's vocals are naturally still very distinctive. There's a brief slower section with interesting keyboard parts, but it's not enough to save the song.

'Champagne and Valium' is also produced to sound American, but in its relaxed blues-jazz approach it's actually quite enjoyable. Perhaps this is musically a bit more convincing than the slightly similar 'Waiting for the Big One' from Peter Gabriel's debut album. The jazzy saxophone is nice. Without having listened to the source album entirely I can only guess, relying on the sole review here, that this song is among the better ones on it. Two stars deserved, so and so.