It's uncanny, some people's knack for telling the future. TV fans will be familiar with Charlie Brooker's 'Black Mirror', which - with its uncompromising first episode - offered a skewed take on the David Cameron/Prime Minister/pig scandal that hit the headlines a few years later. Less porcine, and infinitely more musical in nature is Sheffield's favourite son Jarvis Cocker, and the debut offering ‘Beyond The Pale’ from his new six-piece, creatively dubbed 'Jarv Is'.

I say "new", but in reality this collective have been playing and writing together for the past few years, formed initially to play material at a music festival after they'd met while crafting incidental music for the TV series 'Likely Stories'. From there, the idea of developing tracks in the live concert environment was hit upon, and this seven-track album is the result.

Originally due for release in May 2020, the villainous Covid-19 pandemic ("boo! hiss!") put paid to that, also scuppering a spring-time tour to promote it. But Cocker wasn't one to rest on his laurels, and with an album of material kicking it's heels in the background, he provided entertainment via a series of so-called "Domestic Disco" events via Instagram during the lockdown, spinning a wide range of floor-fillers, personal favourites and the downright strange (a Human League bootleg comprised of just the line: "you were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar", anyone?). Added to this a unique 'green-screen' extended music video and the recent,  'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' YouTube gig from a cave in the Peak District (it was only available for 24hrs) and you have a man who seems intent on giving back as much as possible to his fan-base.

And the album? Well, to use a cliched Pulp pun, it's quite simply "different class". It must be a Northern thing, but the three songwriters who often leave me coughing out a wry chuckle, wishing I'd written a line so clever, witty or rapier-sharp are John Shuttleworth (the slightly nerdish comedy alias of Graham Fellows), Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner and Jarvis himself. And boy does Jarv include some crackers on this collection.

With the single 'House Music All Night Long', Cocker has created an unofficial lockdown anthem, a paean to the perils of an enforced period stuck at home. While the actual song follows a chap "adrift in a world of interiors" as the love of his life indulges in a hectic social agenda without him, the track feels very much like a diary entry from the last three or four months, albeit with the trademark Cocker humour about pedal bins and a subtle injection of dance music and sparkling, shimmering synths. He even manages to rhyme "claustrophobia" with "dis-robing ya" - it shouldn't work, but it bloody well does.

'Swanky Modes', with it's laid-back recollection of an illicit encounter with a clothes-store worker, distils both the beauty of language and the grottiness of a sordid quickie into just four lines: "You sat down on the work surface/I got down to work on your surface/I could hardly get my breath/Toast crumbs like needles on the back of your legs". Later, Cocker ruminates on the likely fates of those connected to the affair: "Some fell by the wayside/Some moved up to Teeside/Some still scoring cocaine/Some laid up with back-pain". Immense.

‘Children of the Echo’ aims for the euphoric, slow-build of latter day Pulp tracks like ‘Sunrise’, and while it just fails to reach those heady heights, it’s still a great way to round off an album.

One of the other more well-known tracks on the album is 'Must I Evolve?' - a knowingly tongue-in-cheek look at human evolution with it's insistent female backing vocals repeating "yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, no". As well as being home to another Cocker classic in: "Dragging my knuckles/Listening to...Frankie Knuckles", he also manages to squeeze in a reference to badgers. Now that's something you don't get with Lewis Capaldi.

In the hands of a lesser songwriter, you'd be forgiven for thinking he was taking the piss, but this is exactly what we love about Jarvis, offering his own unique perspective on ordinary things happening to ordinary people. While there are just seven songs included here, some of them stray into the six-minute territory, adding to the feel that these were once free-form improvisations, honed down into a workable form with the chaff neatly discarded. 'Save the Whale' is as close as things get to a title track, an expansive, breathy intro to an album that successfully combines moments of beauty and yearning, while never forgetting to let its hair down. Yes, we'd have liked another four or five tracks, but this is very much quality over quantity.

Available on a plethora of indie-exclusive vinyl variants, including clear, yellow, orange and a doubtless sold-out glow in the dark edition, the Rough Trade exclusive offers a bonus 25-minute CD in the form of 'Suite for Iain & Jane' - a mixture of live and incidental music recorded by the Jarv Is line-up circa 2016, before the band name was made official. Furthermore, quick-footed fans can snap up a copy of 'Electronic Sound' magazine featuring a bonus pink 7" single featuring two unreleased electronic songs by Cocker and Jarv Is compatriot Jason Buckle, recorded for a live theatre event some years ago.

Overall, 'Beyond the Pale' shows that Cocker - despite his admittance that he has to check himself for assurance he's "not repeating himself" as he approaches 'Elder Statesman' status - certainly still has the crucial 'je ne sais quoi' that makes him one of our most treasured of national treasures. If this is evidence of the strength of the next phase of Jarvis’ career, we can look forward to great things to come.  

TRACKS

1. Save the Whale (4:30)

2. Must I Evolve? (6:41)

3. Am I Missing Something? (6:46)

4. House Music All Night Long (5:53)

5. Sometimes I Am Pharaoh (5:18)

6. Swanky Modes (4:36)

7. Children of the Echo (6:32)

Rough Trade Exclusive Bonus Disc:

8. Suite for Iain & Jane (25:24)

Review by Pete Muscutt