Luke Haines - 'Luke Haines Is Dead' (Hut/EMI) Released 18/07/05

Many of you may know Luke Haines as a crux member of the brooding, melancholy popsters Black Box Recorder – the great man’s only real flirtation with the charts. Here we have a bumper, 63 track melting pot of B-sides, limited-edition rarities, session tracks and singles spanning his 13 year career under three different guises. For the Luke Haines fan this compilation is absolutely essential. For those uninitiated with his fabulous ways, trudging your way through it may well be an arduous task, but the speckling of gems awaiting you make it all worthwhile.

Throughout the three hours plus of music, there’s an unflinching honesty and human quality to Haines’ music. It’s lyrically deft and witty exploiting every emotion in the human condition, and while it’s perhaps not too musically groundbreaking, these are bold, confident songs that will surely stand the test of time. All taken from his band The Auteur’s back catalogue, the first disc kicks off aptly with ‘Das Capital Overture’, complete with stunning strings, grandiloquent movements and a bloody bizarre opening line delivered in his typically hoarse voice “When I first met you/ You were not housetrained.” Brilliant. Elsewhere, killer A-side ‘Showgirl’ is buoyed by stop/start choruses and now trademark tongue-in-cheek lyrics, while ‘Junk Shop Clothes’ is a slow, cello-led offering with Haines upping his lilt for an octave.

Amidst the tuneful gems on CD2, some tracks exhibit the darker side of Haines’ character. ‘Carcrash’ is a tale of coming to terms with some of the shit things that go on in the world. ‘Back With The Killer (Again)’, as the title suggests is dark and bleak but pretty damn impressive, while ‘Unsolved Child Murder’ covers a subject matter very few (The Smiths, for example) could carry off with aplomb. Later, Peel session ‘After Murder Park’ proves what a precocious talent Haines is live as well.

Opening with some of Haines' other band Baader Meinhof tracks, lead song on the final disc ‘Baader Meinhof’ is all simple hand claps juxtaposing with ominous strings. Bizarre: yes. Brilliant: Oui. Only released as a 12” promo, the fuse mix of ‘Accident’ is a potent addition with its gloomy electronica perfectly complimenting the shadowy lyrics, “I made a bomb and lit the fuse.” Yet it’s back with The Auteurs for the irrefutable compendium highlight ‘The Rubettes’ – nothing short of stunning with gorgeous atmospherics, lush xylophone plonks and bells, it centres on the warm line “Where did all the sad songs go?”. Elsewhere, under his solo guise, Haines slips in two wry, slightly hilarious attacks on the lower rungs of society, ‘Never Work’ and ‘How to Hate The Working Classes’.

For those of you not in the know, Luke Haines is of course is not dead. But what a less vibrant world it would be without him.