IN 1989, A CHILLINGLY SOBERING IMPERFECT LIST WAS DRAWN UP TO DENOUNCE BRITAIN’S ILLS. AN UPDATED VERSION IS ABOUT TO BE RELEASED.
Dancer Michael Clark approached Josie Jones and Jake Walters of Big Hard Excellent Fish to write a piece of music for a forthcoming work with the Phoenix Dance Company.
Jones – formerly of Pete Wylie’s Mighty Wah! – asked Wylie to work on the project, and the IMPERFECT LIST of 1989 was born.
Clarks’s choreography with the Phoenix Dance Company was performed at Sadler’s Wells and IMPERFECT LIST also featured in ITV’s South Bank Show documentary about him.
The track was then re-recorded featuring Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins (stream this version below) and released as a 12″ single the following year, including a dance remix by DJ Andy Weatherall. Fourteen years later IMPERFECT LIST found a new audience when Morrissey began using it as the stirring introductory music opening his concerts – something he continues to do to this day.
After several requests in subsequent years to update the track, it wasn’t until 2011 (when approached by One Little Indian) that Big Hard Excellent Fish decided the time was right for a new version: the political climate in Britain, after all, seemingly not much different to the 1980s. Religion, Greed, Murdoch, WMDs, the Banking Crisis, Child Poverty, crooked Judges, Jeremy ‘Wanker’ Clarkson…
AND THE QUESTION REMAINS, written by Josie Jones and Ian C, is accompanied by two alternate versions – the Silver Bullet version (with music by Erik Legrang & Nina Walsh, stream below) and the Rootmasters version (with music by Ian C & James Clancy) – on the one-off single released Monday 23rd September. An accompanying film will be screened the same day by Bar Shorts at The Book Club, Shoreditch. Pre-order the MP3 single from Rough trade, here.

Bar Shorts (http://www.barshorts.com) is a free not-for-profit organisation curated and run by Chris Sheppard (www.chrisshepherdfilms.com) and animation company 12foot6.