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Captain Wilberforce – Mindfilming

The Leeds based songwriter and musician Simon Bristoll is the man behind Captain Wilberforce, a “one man band” in which he plays most of the music himself. In fact the only outside help comes from the guest drummers who supplement Bristoll’s own efforts on vocal, bass, keyboard and especially guitar. “Mindfilming” is the Captain's first real album, although I’ve heard about a homemade CDR affair, his earlier demo mini-album - ”Dreams of Educated Fleas”.

Although the whole project is clearly DIY orientated this is not just some meek lo-fi attempt here; actually Bristoll makes explosive guitar dominated power-pop which does not shy away from dramatic layer-cake overdubbing and windmill power chords and most importantly of all, offers decent melodic ideas.

Capt. W hasn’t got much in common with the typical American fondness for power-pop, (although one might surmise that the long since departed Jellyfish could easily be a source of inspiration for Bristoll), but neither does the project seem to be like much else that is going on in England just now.

Within “Mindfilming“ there are neither fashionable allusions to awkward post-punk, nor to danceable beats: in fact Bristoll seems to steer towards the beginning of the 90’s and the later phase of the shoegazing scene. A song like ”Vaselined Eyes” directs thoughts towards “The Boo Radleys” and “Teenage Fanclub” as they sounded around 1992-93.

The big production indicates that the 80’s are also part of Capt. W’s influences although not in any electropop way but because the mix can be a little overblown (but as a rule in a good way!). In several places, as in the grandiose opening number “Glass”, the band can sound like a more guitar based ”Tears for Fears”, whilst Bristoll’s fragile but pleasant vocal is reminiscent of the Prefab Sprout songwriter Paddy McAloon. And it is also McAloon’s melodic sensibility one can sense popping up on the CD’s poignant super-elegant title song.

Although the lyrics might not be the first thing that attract you to this CD, it nevertheless should be mentioned that Bristoll seems to have created a loose thread throughout the songs around characters that can’t break through the wall between dreams and reality, between dreary everyday demands and idealistic self-realization. “Mindfilming” for Bristoll is more specifically a kind of term for daydreams or, in the bigger perspective, living life with a feeling that a more real, authentic reality exists.

In “The Incredible Commuting Mole (Must Die)” you meet the wage slave that dreams about stealing from the cash register and escaping the daily grind, which is “exciting as Russian Roulette, when the gun isn’t loaded” and flying to California.

In “I Haven’t Got Any Famous Friends” the hopeful rock hero must ”bang his head against a brick wall” chasing fame when the situation is set against him. Fame and recognition however (when they eventually arrive), are problematic in a non stop celebrity culture / industry. The whole thing often ends in a media frenzy of debauchery and self destruction as described in the bombastic and ironic “Singer Wanted, Preferably Dead”, where the young turks of pop living up to the rock mythology clichés are put in their place – “the disbelievers and their wagging tongues / All are silenced as you slice your arm in front of them / A calculated bet that fails to pay / ’Cos they’ll always end up bored with you eventually”. And then there is the ideal love which can’t be realised because of reticence and social conventions as described via the modern Romeo and Juliet characters of “A Very British Earthquake”. Bristoll makes his point with a disarming sympathetic sense of humour but also with grandiose guitar riffs: The term ”A Very British Earthquake” could easily be used to describe the album “Mindfilming” itself.

Simon Bristoll intends to have a new Capt. W album ready later this spring and I’m crossing my fingers that when it arrives the world takes more notice!


- Martin Nielsen
Review in original Danish

Many thanks to Hanne Webster and Anna-Lena Jurmu for their respective translations!