Comedy records or music by comedians are rarely a laughing matter. The singles charts of my childhood are littered with atrocities like Benny Hill’s Ernie (The Fast Milkman in the West). Even when a more respected funnyman such as Vic Reeves joined forces with an established group, The Wonder Stuff, the resulting cover of Dizzy was tepid at best. However, anyone who has read James Acaster’s book with its Pavement referencing title Perfect Sound Whatever, in which he posits the idea that 2016 was the greatest year ever for music, will know that music came before comedy for him. The way he champions acts like Death Grips make it clear he is unlikely to follow many of his fellow comedians in seeking a subsidiary career as a Radio 2 DJ.
The road to releasing Stand in the Star. A Verse and A Chorus is longer and even more convoluted than the album’s title. Formed in 2004 by Acaster and Graeme Wicks, after three years of poorly attended gigs and adverse audience reaction which included having shoes thrown at them and being chased out of a car park with people trying to punch their car, they were ready to quit. Even their name comes from a drunk audience member telling them they lacked the X Factor but getting the phrase wrong and calling it the Wow Scenario. As a final hurrah, they recorded all their songs with producer Chris Hamilton, one of the few people who liked them, creating a jumble of jazzy guitars, freewheeling drums, field recordings and flat singing.
Ten years later, they revisited the recordings, realised they loved all bar the vocals and decided to replace the vocal melodies with saxophones, clarinet, fiddle and cello played by Mark Brown, Guy Fletcher and Abi Wade. While this was an improvement, Acaster and Wicks concluded that now it missed the vocals. Finally, in 2023, at a third session Brian Christinzio (aka. BC Camplight) and Emma Daman were drafted in to perform the vocals in the way that was originally intended. After a final mixing session, the album is ready and it is time to determine whether it has been worth the wait.
It immediately becomes apparent that the album’s title is inappropriate or ironic as they show little desire for following a conventional verse-chorus pattern in their songs. Fitting with the exclamatory nature of The Wow! Scenario’s name, all eight tracks are furnished with an exclamation mark at the end. Diving! which sets the ball rolling gives a good indication of what follows. The brass is delivered in staccato bursts, the music and rhythms careen at angles that are most reminiscent of mid-80s bands like Stump and The Shrubs who took inspiration from Trout Mask Replica era Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. However, while bands of that nature often used voices that had a growly, bluesy quality, Christinzio is his usual hyper melodic self. Part way through, guitar lines similar to post-rock at its most jazzy meandering add to the melange.
Once More! divulges from the Wedding Present song of that name in more than having a bonus punctuation mark. There is comedy to some of its manoeuvres that are so unexpected as to draw a gasp or laugh. There are sax lines that sound like blasts on a clown’s car horn, other moments that resemble freeform jazz. Daman gets to sing the first verse before Christinzio expertly maintains a melodic continuity while singing over a ridiculous time signature. The Wow! Scenario clearly enjoy creating rhythms outside of conventional structures with Instructions! being similarly all over the place in the most delightful of ways.
There is little more laughable than Golf Socks! However, there is a plaintiveness to the opening lines (“Emptiness is wanting to / Hold a hand and be in love”) repeated over Afrobeat guitars. Despite the song’s reference to energy pills and caffein express, it is slightly more restrained than its predecessors, whilst the closing lines which are delivered prior to a sharp blast on a whistle could be a summation of their process (“I need to / Evaluate, go and make some more mistakes / Evaluate.”)
The interconnection between Christinzio’s and Daman’s voices work especially well on Alpaca Spinner! They manage to create a melodic edifice out of a messy structure while the themes of over-analysing dreams and travel not being the only way of expanding the mind leads to a conclusion that fits their musical approach (“it’s true that maps are marvellous / just don’t value them too high.”) Out of the chaos, moments of coherence emerge and the first half of Zacuti! has a joyful swing to its horns and what is vaguely recognisable as a Motown-like pop quality before its second section indulges in some jazzy guitar noodling.
Reality! is dreamy yet disjointed. It maintains the theme of travel that runs through the album, taking in a holidaying couple walking around an airport, space travel and the comparative speed with which dreams and reality travel. With bits of fiddle, clarinet, piano, wistful vocals and a dusting of piano, it has appealing moments but is guilty of too much drift.
After the waywardness of what has gone before it, closing track The Curse! is a surprise, a nine-minute instrumental that maintains a steady, minimalistic groove with guitar, strings and piano producing variations on a theme and it is rather lovely.
By their own admission, The Wow! Scenario aimed to graduate from impenetrable to an acquired taste. While Stand in the Star. A Verse and a Chorus is undoubtedly niche, ambitious and regularly flirts with falling apart, it is taste that I am happy to have acquired.
The Wow! Scenario: Stand in the Star. A Verse and a Chorus – Out 23 October 2026 (Bella Union)
Wow! Scenario – Zacuti! (Official Video)
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
