The Post Nearly Man

His debut album, first time on vinyl. From an uncredited review:

“Staying in Manchester on the theme of mancunian Poetry….cut to pseudo intellectual skin’ed blogger from near future to explain……
If the kids of the future are still able to read,write and go to school, the works of Mark E. Smith should clearly be on the syllabus. A unique wordsmith was Mark Edward,criminally underepresented in the exclusive spheres of the spoken and written word.
Around the time that seemed to be the end of the Fall around 1998,with the infamous drunken brawl in New York, when the long serving/suffering members of the classic Fall line up walked out on a seriously alcoholic,and abusive Smith. Mark Edward ‘S’,recruited a new band and created his first solo album,”The Post Nearly Man”; which was a kind of an experimental spoken word collage,primarily featuring Mark’s unique style of language and some unaccompanied readings of Fall lyrics.
“Get ahead with your purile slurred word rigmarole and ‘purritout(‘put it out’ in English)'”, says Mark on “I’m Bobby(part 1)”……And ‘Purritout’ he did.
“The Post Nearly Man”,ironically starts off not with the words of Mark E. himself, but those of fellow initials user, H.P.Lovecraft,and this unnervingly accurate insight into the oncoming New Dark age:
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
…..well,I couldn’t have put it more bleakly,or accurately myself? Let there be No Light!
After the Lovecraft quote,this CD is a fine work that examines the joy of language,and delivery of therein, which almost becomes an avant-garde tape collage…..(oooooh He’d have hated that pigeon hole!).Frequently used,is that technique that fellow poet,and obvious influence,Don Van Vliet, used on Trout Mask Replica,stopping and starting a cassette recorder or dictophone,to live edit ones parole in real time.
But unlike most ‘proper’ artists and poets, our Mark, wouldn’t waste his and our time explaining himself, its just something he did,and here’s the product and the proof.
Question:….Poet, or just drunk bloke doing drunk bloke stuff that we all read too much into, viewed from our pretentious disneylands…ahhhhh!
Personally,in the last ten years or so of the Fall it did sound just like that.A middle of the road post-punk tribute band fronted by a Drunk pub philosopher…….but,indeed,a much missed, Drunk Pub Philosopher……irreplaceable.
From here in The safety of this ‘New Intellectual Skin’ed Morass’….RIP MES”.

Tracklisting: