Teachers have it, teachers rock! Mild mannered educators by day, but by night they transform themselves into hip scenesters, down with the kids and wowing the audience with the kind of musical delights usually espoused by delinquents, disaffected youths and bad kids from good families. Sting, yeah he was a teacher (remember ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’? – true story that), Grapper, the guitar wielding thrasher from The Wedding Present, yep he was a teacher too, Mr. Solowka to the school kids of West Yorkshire), Gordon McIntyre of Ballboy and Money Can’t Buy Music – you guessed it, from nine until three thirty he is the good natured, aimiable Mr. McIntyre from an unassuming primary school in Edinburgh. And so step up Miss Hagopian of Brooklyn who, when the bell rings at half past three steps out of the classroom and into the shoes of Cannonball Jane, a one woman indie pop hip hop starlet.

We really should put all the school stuff behind us though and concentrate on the record that Sharon Hagop.. sorry Cannonball Jane has produced, written and recorded entirely at home Street Vernacular is a plethora of beats, booms, samples and sweeps, it’s an indie kids dream, the intelligent, meaningful lyrics set against the cool exuding soundtrack so well illustrated by the likes of St. Etienne, De La Soul and more recently and pertinently, The Go! Team. At last, the kids sigh, someone cool that you can dance to.

Slumber Party opens the record with ease, it’s a swooning ballad in the mould of Carly Simon or Carole King, but driven along by a multitude of beats and samples. The two opposite ends of the spectrum merge perfectly and blend a whole new sound, it’s melodious and harmonious, yet funky and fruity, and indeed sets the tone for the whole record. Hey! Hey! Alright! Is an essential piece of throwaway pop fun, careering along and three million b.p.m. with it’s Hammond riffing and mindless chorus this song does nothing more than drag you along to the disco and force you to shuffle along, it’s impossibly irresistible, and in that is it’s innate charm. Fun, fluffy, funky disco party craziness.

Such is the Score swings the style right back to the opener with a sixties girl group feel. Think The Shirelles in a hot tub with Run DMC and you’re halfway there. Ditto Breaker Breaker, the syrupy vocals are swathed in reverb and hidden deep in the almost chaotic mix, it all makes for a warm fuzzy mix that is impossible to ignore, on a wet, dark, bleak day in south Lancashire this record shines and bathes like a day on sun kissed beach, it’s absolute fun, fun, fun.

Add a Wrap and Fine Reminder are both brooding aches of piano ballads, again laced with the electro pop excitement that keeps that album feeling edge, aware and involved, this record never slips into the background, it has you sat bolt upright throughout, impossible to ignore and just as hard to dislike, it swings from in your face, to almost easy without so much as a second glance and whichever way it goes, it takes the listener with it.

Just as those two tracks have lulled and soothed you, up steps Brave New World for sure the porky prime cut from the record, it’s fresh and feisty, it samples both Mozart and Pac-man, what more could you wish for, a hard, kick drum guides scuzzy lines of overdriven guitar through the maze of woo’s and wah’s, it is, as they say, damn fine. And with that, just as you are appropriately unsettled and squirming in the chair Automatic Knockout floors you all over again, with the luscious piano lead melody and soaring flute lines you’d thing that there was no room for innovative, inventive sampling, ypu would, and you’d be wrong, it’s a small song, but it’s full.

Let’s Go comes flying around the corner and knocks you clean off your feet, that’s the whole feel of this record, it doesn’t seem to build to any kind of climax, it just swings from fast to slow, from up to down and in doing so creates the perfect pop record. You never really know what to expect next, and even with repeated listenings you are never quite aware of what is around the next corner. Some might think this is bad planning, I prefer to disagree and say that it is perfectly planned and in such is a million miles away from bland. Most bands would have had this track opening the album, not the Cannonball, she makes it the penultimate track through stubbornness, through individuality, through...well, I don’t know what, but she does it and it works a treat.

Album closer is the semi-anthemic, partially euphoric The Force of Gravity, vocoded voices and bleeps and bloops that sound like a message from Mars all come together on a track to take away your breath.

The lo-fi production of Street Vernacular adds a wealth to the styling and song writing of Cannonball Jane’s output, this wouldn’t sound half as good as it does if it had a million dollars spent on it and Quincy Jones twiddling the knobs, it’s just be another pseudo pop, sub-Madonna sliver of integrity, all the goodness would have been extracted and all the talent walked all over. As it stands this record is perfect, it stands alone on it’s own two feet in an un-named genre in a category all of it’s own. This is what kids can do in their own bedrooms now and it has more balls, style and skill than those age old rockers who are doing whatever it is they do in stadiums all around the world this weekend.

Cannonball Jane, music for the minorities, don’t be the one to miss out.

Johnny Mac

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