When it comes to quantity and quality, usually you get one or the other. Yet with two discs, 39 tracks, 100 pages and artists such as David Byrne, Franz Ferdinand, TV on the Radio, Grizzly Bear and Liars, David Shrigleys Worried Noodles offers a lot of both. Starting two years ago as an art-splattered book of lyrics, Shrigleys project has now ballooned into actual music, with a diverse selection of musicians turning the Glasgow visual artists off-centre words into finished songs. And for the most part, the results are quite stunning. Unlike most compilation-type ventures, Worried Noodles is hardly a fractured listen where theres filler, more filler and one or two killers. Instead, Shrigleys lyrics work as an anchor, giving all the tracks a common thread thats innocent and childlike yet, at the same time, disturbing and a bit frightening. And even if lyrics arent your thing, exceptional contributions by Dirty Projectors, Yacht and Final Fantasy, among others, give these discs enough musical strength to keep them spinning whether youre a Shrigley fan or not.
(Tomlab)Various
David Shrigley's Worried Noodles
BY Brock ThiessenPublished Nov 20, 2007