To All Things What They Need

A GUY CALLED GERALD
TO ALL THINGS WHAT THEY NEED
!K7

******** (8/10)

"The overall message is that we are all part of the same thing really and if you need something it'll come to you," says A Guy Called Gerald of his new album To All Things What They Need. The title comes from the work of Fu Hsi, an ancient Taoist Chinese sage who is said to have been a key player in the development of the I-Ching. "Everything in nature provides for everything else in a way," says Gerald from his base in Berlin. "To all things what they need is like saying if you fight against it you disrupt it, but if you just feel what it is and go with it, you are providing for yourself and also helping everything else at the same time." If the ultimate message is one of mutual respect, knowing, understanding and accepting one's natural place in the grand scheme of things, it's inevitable that this album carries some political baggage. Wisely, Gerald gets it over with straight off, opening proceedings with American Cars, a comment on US gas guzzling culture containing a sampled radio broadcast: "Every gun, every warship, every tank, every military aircraft built is in the final analysis a theft from those who are hungry and are not fed, from those who are naked and are not clothed". His new album is a worldly, mature offering which draws on a wide variety of influences from around the world. There's poetry, vocals from old friend Finley Quaye, and even a sample of Maggie Thatcher's famous attempt to ingratiate herself to the American people. "You ain't seen nothing yet," she says to an amused crowd — how right she was.

Stuart Aitken