SHUFFLEMANIA! is a kaleidoscope, throwback pop rock record, ten songs from various inspiration, attitude, and emotion. The twenty second studio album from Robyn Hitchcock, his first album in five years, came about after touring burnout and pandemic lockdown; the artist let the tunes drift to him, then dealt them out to compatriots.
While Hitchcock wrote all the songs, what makes this album unique is that he sent the demos to various musical friends with no direction and let them contribute. Those additions were then accentuated when Hitchcock and partner/producer/singer Emma Swift re-recorded vocals at Abbey Road studios.
Things are summed up in “The Shuffle Man” as Hitchcock plays the cards he was dealt with this release, bringing Brendan Benson onboard to play all instruments and sing backup on the opening track that shakes with garage rock rambling. The Beatles are always the largest influence on Hitchcock’s playing/songwriting/singing and even with others input, The Fab Four’s DNA flows through each of these efforts.
“Socrates in Thin Air” would be right at home on The White Album as would the death/life duality of the twanging “The Main Who Loves the Rain”. “The Feathery Serpent God” was the first song Robyn wrote for the collection, and it brings a more psychedelic, Pink Floyd vibe with added sitar from Kelley Stoltz and keyboards from Wilco’s Patrick Sansone. Sansone sticks around to help on “Midnight Tram to Nowhere”, a slice of British blues with excellent falsetto singing and harmonica from Hitchcock while “Noirer Than Noir” lives up to its Twin Peaks-y title with marimba as the focal point, provided by Charlie Francis who also mixed the album.
“The Inner Life of Scorpio”, with Johnny Marr helping, drifts along dully without ever landing solidly but Benson returns for the more rocking “The Sir Tommy Shovel” while “The Raging Muse” chugs and swaggers with electric guitars from Davey Lane and piano from Francis around bizarro, surreal lyrics from Hitchcock. Album closer “One Day (It’s Being Scheduled)” keeps the odd lyrics but pairs them with more conventional love tropes as Sean Lennon joins on host of instrumentation as well as singing through a vocoder.
Robyn Hitchcock’s easy-going sense of whatever-will-be-will-be floats through the varied compositions on SHUFFLEMANIA! as the artist (with a little help from his friends) slips and slides around his Beatles inspired pop offerings. With his willingness to try anything, Hitchcock proves as influential today as he was in his colorful Soft Boys and Egyptians eras.
