(3-TRACK SINGLE/ 1999)
A veirdly vunderfully vry step-out of everyday norm. I think the Laptop live experience was recommended to me, but I confused them with Bradford rockers Lapdog, and so went to see one of their crowdless gigs instead � SHIT! �Nothing To Declare� beats in true 80�s Electronica fashion, a Human Leagued animated track, backed by an air hostess with the mostess running through in-flight safety procedures (the sample �Please remain seated with seatbelts fastened� intermittently repeats over the PA), while the accompanying cartoon-strip on the CD�s sleeve shows a dashing cavalier in mock knighthood kissing the fair hand of the drink-issuing �stess, to get an abrupt slap round the chops simply for acting gentlemanly in these modern times, when guilty-till-proven-innocent �come ons� surround. This is beat-led Electro-pop rigidly created, and sung by Laptop AKA Jesse Hartman straight-faced, the customs-&-excise derived �I�ve nothing to declare� claim acting a between-going metaphor for his life, or lack-of� with �Nothing to declare except my loneliness.� Emotionally stonewalled, perhaps, �Social Life� follows up initial, deadpanned seriousness under Hartman�s perky pop guise, brightly intercutting phone-conversation samples. He�s a man: lonely and clinically depressed, seemingly� but step-back, and it�s obvious he�s a comedian, tongue-in-cheek. Highlight �We Never Made It To Venice� is best approached knowing David Bowie�s sad sad �I Never Went To Oxford Town,� and best described a tourism-touting travel documentary set to cutting-edge thought processes - the ballsy type of which are rarely manifested into such a tangible format. Imaginatively overdriving a spoken word guided tour of one of the world�s most romantic cities (�The most romantic way to tour is by gondola, under the Rialto Bridge��), in one fell swoop it�s too much to listen to, as the atmospherically lush soundscape, the sorrowful �We never made it� regret, and the tour-guide�s sight-seeing points of interest all clash in a classy Lo-fi manner. This, Track C (logically after A & B), ferments the fact that Laptop are/ is one contemporarily cool, casually inspired by anything-and-everything entity. Abstractly surreal and sample-chauffeured throughout, appeal�s compulsively viral. (STEVE RUDD)
CONTACT LAPTOP� http://www.island.co.uk/island/ or http://www.laptopia.net