| |
Chris Bottomley
Somebody Help Me Now (download track)
(independent) - 2025
Michael Panontin
|
Chris Bottomley hasn't exactly tossed out a lot of red meat for his fans of late. The erstwhile Tulpa and Brainfudge bassist has issued just two download singles in the past three years: 2022's breezy, orchestral 'Summer' and 'Pull It Together', its more topical jazz-reggae follow-up. Both tracks were juicy enough cuts of soulful songwriting, offering plenty for us to chew on. But after many listens, it was starting to feel a bit like gnawing at the bone. Thankfully, there's more - much more actually - coming our way.
'Somebody Help Me Now', the first single from an upcoming double-LP, is by Bottomley's own admission a return to his rock roots. "I'd been wanting to go there for some time and drummer Bob Scott was urging me to," he writes. "So most of these songs are influenced by groups I grew up with - the Beatles, the Who, etc. I wanted to make a songwriter's album. There's a simplicity in the arrangements and I wrote most of these songs on guitar."
'Somebody Help Me Now' is stodgy, funky bass-heavy stew that opens with Bottomley - hijacking my metaphor in the process - belting out a line like "I'm cooking jumbalaya / In the depths of my soul" and then a little later on taking a turn down more sordid avenues with "There's a few dark corners / Where the angel's don't go / Where cynicism rules / With a long dark cloak".
Bottomley came up with the lyrics first and then worked out the tune. "I was doodling around on the guitar one day and came up with the opening riff. I wanted the verses to have a pulsing beat. I added the big muff fuzz bass, played with a pick, to dig in on the choruses and give the song a bit more bite." Cranked loud on a good stereo, 'Somebody Help Me Now' will hit you hard, right in the solar plexus. And if the down-and-dirty bass and guitar don't get you, then Perry White's baritone sax, which enters the fray at the two-and-a-half-minute mark, most certainly will.
Bottomley's upcoming album is called High Vibration Vol 1 & 2. Stay tuned.
|
|
Suggestions
Bob Bryden and Long Day Journey
Love in the Atomic Age
(independent)
Intersystems
Free Psychedelic Poster Inside
(independent)
The Filthy Politicians
Modern Man
(independent)
Jeff Moore and Friends
The Youngest Son
(independent)
Spacecraft 7
Lonesome Torpedo Redux
(independent)
|
