Son of Punk

Son Of Punk crosses many genres and generations, not conforming to any particular style but exposing a thoughtful lyrical approach to depth and substance, from the personal to the bigger landscape of human bondage.

Otis Coulter glides his passioned vocals across orchestras, beats but also silence to capture the substance of each song, fragile and real.
Aki Nawaz (Southern Death Cult/ Fun Da Mental) ventures into alternative creative mode to pull together and produce an album free from any restrictions, to blend an emotional soundtrack to the times we live in.

The album is free from the shackles of the norm, breaking rules, screams when it wants, as and how it chooses.

The soul, is in conflict, in turmoil but also joy and progressive.

Art has no fear when it knows its direction has some meaning in the chaos and noise.

The debut album sets its own direction in an unpredictable manner, mood matters, thoughts are on fire, without a care for parameters.

A real sense of reimagined Punk expression into the future and for the future.

Son Of Punk Children Of The Free Nation DL Approaching a record by an act named Son Of Punk, without much else in the way of context clues, I expected something predictably derivative of the titular genre. How wrong I was. Instead, self-described “alternative nepo-baby” Otis Coulter – he is the son of Sarah Jane Morris (The Communards, Pere Ubu) and David Coulter (The Pogues, Test Department) – has produced a debut of genuinely unexpected chamber pop. The velvet curtains open on “Angels Bleed”, a theatrical piano ballad on which Coulter asserts himself in the lineage of male torch singers like Billy Mackenzie and Marc Almond. Parallel vocal and piano melodies run up and down the scales, wobbling and stumbling then straightening themselves out like a sober jolt. It’s a strong statement to begin with, but Coulter doesn’t return to this mode – instead he uses each track to try out a new musical form like a custom-fit costume. The title track is louche and woozy, a narcotic take on sophistipop. “Diving Deep” and “Freedom Song” pair indie pop melodies with striking industrial percussion. “Rubble Speaks Birds Cry” is a unusual protest song, its anti-war anti-nationalist lyrics (“We saw the selling of flags/We won’t stand for war/Again and again and again”) backed by a swarm of strings. It recalls Billy Mackenzie’s take on Randy Newman’s “Baltimore”, performed with the arch artfulness of Patrick Wolf. There are other touchstones here, not least the freewheeling storytelling of Neil Hannon and early Rufus Wainwright. The album features Coulter’s cover of Wainwright’s enduring lament “Going To A Town”, expanding the song’s elegiac nature into a funereal dirge. His version of Dead Kennedys’ “Holiday In Cambodia” is an even more transformative take on a cult classic song, slowing its punk nihilism down to a gothic grind. Children Of The Free is a refreshing interpretation of punk spirit as unselfconscious creativity – don’t let this highly original debut go under your radar. Claire Biddles
SON OF PUNK Children Of The Free NATION Curious. I didn’t get this at first, but I’m addicted to it now. Totally in love with it. Utterly besotted. Son Of Punk is Otis Coulter. His mum is Sarah-Jane Morris of The Communards and The Happy End fame. His dad is David Coulter, who’s worked with Test Department, Yoko Ono, Tom Waits and more. Good sonic genes, then. And with ‘Children Of The Free’, he’s crafted a truly unique album. From electro-ballads — think of a much edgier James Blake — to baroque pop songs and touches of musical theatre, it’s a whorl of different genres, with the resonant production acting as the gel. At one extreme is the slow, nagging version of the Dead Kennedys’ ‘Holiday In Cambodia’, which is eight minutes long and driven by an absurdly heavy bass synth. At the other is the poignant ‘Rubble Speaks, Birds Cry’, an anti-war poem backed by cellos and violins. Coulter’s voice is magnificent throughout — sometimes a bit like Billy Mackenzie, sometimes closer to a 1950s crooner — and his pointed lyrics are both personal and political. Either way, they’re optimistic, but with the odd twist. “Fuck the hate,” he asserts on ‘Freedom Song’. You bet. With the right breaks at the right time, I reckon Otis Coulter will be a superstar one day. Seriously. Remember where you read it first.
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The Album out now on Nation Records Download Lyrics here