Britain's Baxter Dury swaps 'ponderous' indie for dance music

British singer-songwriter Baxter Dury, more than two decades into a career of delivering deadpan lyrics over sometimes mournful indie music, has discovered the joys of making his fans dance.

For his ninth studio album, which releases September 12, the 53-year-old son of The Blockheads frontman Ian Dury teamed up with British super-producer Paul Epworth, whose past clients include Rihanna, Adele and Florence + the Machine.

The result is the nine-track album "Allbarone", recorded in a month-long burst of activity at Epworth's north London studio in January that has Dury drawl over synths, heavy basslines and electro-pop rhythms.

The new direction is partly inspired by Dury's post-Covid collaboration with current British dance music favourite "Fred again" and a widely lauded set at Glastonbury festival in 2024.

"I did the dance collaboration with Fred again, and I saw the effect of that on an audience," Dury told AFP ahead of the release. "I was like 'humans are moving, actually moving', whereas before they were kind of processing and thinking."

His gigs sometimes felt like "being at a lecture", he said but the departure from what he described as his "indie-based ponderous music" is not without risks, given the danger of alienating parts of his loyal fan base.

Dury believes it's worth it, with the new tracks set to add some up-tempo energy to his live sets during a UK and European tour that starts on November 11.

"I find it very hard to carry on doing the same thing," he explained. "Who knows what will happen... I'm sure you have to sort of hold your breath and get a view on it after a few years ago, about whether it was a success or not."

Fans will find plenty of Dury's usual London-inflected dry humour, self-depreciation and biting lyrics about everything from east London hipsters to low-cost airlines.

The expletive-heavy "Return of the Sharp Heads" is about "certain people at certain times who have just irritated me", which include wealthy party-people hanging out with "pasteurised, unusual looking models".

Title track "Allbarone" -- inspired by the British wine bar chain All Bar One, where Dury once had an unsuccessful date -- is packed with bittersweet lyrics about the awkwardness and pain of unrequited lust.

Agence France-Presse