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Catalog reference number: IPS 1025.
Double LP release date: october 9th, 2025.
Price: 25 €.
Shipping costs (delivery by Colissimo or Mondial Relay)
: France (8,65 €), Europe (15 euros), Reste du monde
(20 euros).
Limited edition double LP / 200 vinyl copies on Jelodanti
Records & InPoly Sons (hand stamped) with coloured inserts.
This is an ambitious double album aimed against the politics
and ideology of the right wing English Tory (Conservative)
Party. Here's how Mick Hobbs introduced the project to us
in one line the 13th of december 2024:
« I’ve been getting on with things here, doing
a collection of songs against the Conservative party. (...)
It’s domestic, but international also. »
By Denis Tagu:
"Officer!, an English interjection used to address
a police officer, a "bobby" in London, to ask
for directions, information, or help. And perhaps, since
the 1980s, this word might have taken on a certain authority,
aggression, with several exclamation points against these
increasingly repressive police forces, under the yoke of
the various political regimes of the English right wing
(the Tories), an era begun by Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, the
unstoppable Iron Lady, the one who was not for turning,
who left her mark on her time, her society, and much of
the Western world with her social (or anti-social) and economic
models, leading to the ultraliberalism and insoluble divisions
we know today.
Many English people, mostly poor or "lower middle
class" as they say, have suffered and continue to suffer
with two s, even if sometimes three or four s are needed
to demonstrate the force of this suffering.
The English right wing remained in power for almost 20
years: Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1990, followed by
the weak, but genial and devious John Major until 1997.
At the beginning of the Thatcher era, Mick Hobbs began his
musical career, notably as a bassist in the band The Work,
a dry, uncompromising rock band, proud of its title "I
hate America". At the same time, he set up his more
personal project, more fragile in form under the name of
Officer!. But just as involved in the big questions of our
lives ("All reality is symbolic";"Take something
big and call it a god (or a dog)"). A collective that
took different forms with his musician friends because for
Mick, community made sense. It was then a question of fighting
and surviving in this anti-poor, anti-artist world.
This album "Dead Right", the latest from Officer!,
is intended as a slap in the face to the English conservatives,
"who destroyed my life", as Mick once said. With
his friend and longtime member of Officer!, Felix Fiedorowicz,
Mick created this project, open to more than 20 collaborators
(always the sense of community), performers, authors, and
composers, to put an end to this alienating right, especially
since July 2024, the arguably left (Labour) has returned
to power in the United Kingdom.
This rock-tinged album is brilliant, enlightening, ambiguous,
provocative and fun: excerpts from speeches and announcements
by British politicians are interspersed throughout the musical
themes, including direct addresses ("Putin's table"),
hard-hitting messages ("Kick them out now"), and
traditional militant chants ("Le chant des partisans";
"’Internationale"; "The Red Flag").
A coherent work, committed experimental pop-rock, radical
but not extremist, which will undoubtedly mark the history
of Officer! and militant rock at the beginning of the 21st
century."
Mick Hobbs : Composition, Voice, Instruments, Mixing, Concept
Felix Fiedorowicz : Composition, Arrangements, Keyboards,
Mixing, Programming
All tracks variously recorded by Officer! and guests in
the UK, France, Switzerland, Greece, Brazil and the USA.
Esteemed contributors to this album include: Bill Gilonis,
Tilly Bean, and Xentos Fray Bentos. Also, Alison Craig and
Mary Currie from the UK group The PGs, the remarkable ensemble
the Dark Zen Kollectiv led by the ubiquitous Andy Bole,
the American group Harry Din, Benb and Desmond Gallaher,
French chanteuse Dominique Levillain, Malidia
Signore, Alig Fodder, Oli Pyper, Beth Hopkins, Gilles-Vincent
Rieder, Luca Rossetti, Benoît Proust, lyric baritone
Dorian Feller, Keisuke Matsui, Alistair Strachan, the Welsh
troubadour Syd Howells, saxophone maestro Andy Saunders,
the poet and writer Harry Gilonis and composer Tim Hodgkinson.
Original Mastering: Noel Summerville (UK) Additional
Editing and Mastering: Felix Fiedorowicz (Greece)
Additional Mastering: Patrick Müller (Fr)
Original Artwork: Claudia Schmidt (UK)
Cover design: Jelodanti (Fr)
Hand lettering: Philippe Desouter (Fr).
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