The Voluntary Butler Scheme – At Breakfast, Dinner, Tea

The Voluntary Butler Scheme is Rob Jones of the Midlands, a one-man band who makes songs that you can tap your feet to, songs that have a rinky-dink coastal seaside holiday feeling, that recall the mundanity and ordinariness of 20th century Britain with a grin. Jones has a sense of humour about him and you could definitely say there is something akin to Jim Noir here, a mild eccentricity, a freewheeling one-man band mystique (although they may very well work with other musicians), and it makes their work quintessentially British, something you won’t find the like of anywhere else. There is a constant froth and bubble about the first two thirds of At Breakfast, Dinner, Tea, it’s easy listening pop that doesn’t demand much. At its best this album is like a bag of sweets, each track is at the very least a sugary treat in some particular shape or form, but you have your particular favourite flavours. Like ‘Tabasco Sole’, with it’s guitar appropriated from ‘Want You Back’ by the Jackson 5 (possibly my favourite guitar riff ever, so I’m ok with that), a little orgasm of sugar, melody, presentation and conciseness that does what all great songs do, cuts straight into your chest. It’s easy to get out of breath just listening to it.There are a few blues/funk/soul touches throughout the album, ‘Multiplayer’ gets all raunchy and funky in it’s last third, early rock n roll guitar appears in ‘The Eiffel Tower And The BT Tower’, Jones peals out blue-eyed soul vocals across many songs. It’s appropriate again to mention Jim Noir here because there is a shared aesthetic of analog mid-fi orchestral collage, and melodic right hooks to the jaw.And much like with Noir there is a risk in there of coming across as nod-nod-wink-wink self-aware, which can be obnoxious. Hell, the album does fall into that trap sometimes, but there is enough charm to make it work, like with ‘Dancing With Ted Danson’ where the title is total eye-rolling times, but the actual music lives up to it by being a charming instrumental that sounds exactly like a bubbly 80's sitcom theme. And the references to Chuck Berry records that don’t get listened to, or pretending to read books, but coincidentally only the ones with film adaptations, or the meta lines in ‘Hot Air Balloon Heart’, all have the ability to make you cringe, but you somehow don’t mind, because the persona is pulled off with such panache.When At Breakfast, Dinner, Tea starts to set on the western horizon, Jones becomes a bit more plaintive, a little less flippant and playful. 'Turn Country Lanes Into Motorways' is a lovely song where you suddenly notice the lyrics "I’m gonna love you til this feeling runs out’, ‘You’re gonna have to hold onto me for a while if I loosen my grip", as heartfelt and vulnerable. Along with the other two songs at the end of the album, ‘Night Driver’ and ‘Sleeping On Top Of Things’, it gets a sweet but sad, soft but loud, musical backing and adds a new page to Rob Jones songbook, where the more obnoxious aspects are left behind and a serious (but in no way subdued) quality shows through.The Voluntary Butler Scheme on MySpace