Momus

Momus takes his name from the Greek deity of ridicule, serving as the artistic identity of Nick Currie, a Scottish-born singer, songwriter, author, and provocateur whose intellectually layered work defies easy categorization as it shifts among acoustic ballads, electro-pop, easy listening, and post-punk. Renowned for his resonant baritone and preoccupation with psychosexuality alongside cultural and political turmoil, he surfaced in the early 1980s leading the experimental group the Happy Family. Affiliation with the Creation label in 1987 yielded his second solo album, The Poison Boyfriend. A mid-1990s move to Cherry Red Records brought substantial recognition in Japan, where he later settled. Beginning with the 1986 biblically themed Circus Maximus, he has sustained an output of roughly one album per year, among them the 1998 analog Baroque effort The Little Red Songbook, the 2005 musique concrète-influenced Otto Spooky, the 2016 post-Brexit Scobberlotchers, and the lively 2022 Issyvoo.

Currie, born in 1960, lived in Greece and Canada before returning to Scotland for university studies. In 1981 he left school to form the Happy Family, which also included three former members of Josef K. After signing with 4AD the band produced only the 1982 album The Man on Your Street and then disbanded.

Following his return to university and eventual graduation, Currie relocated to London in 1984. He reached an agreement with el Records and issued Circus Maximus in 1986, the first release under the Momus name—selected to honor the Olympian god exiled for questioning Zeus’s judgment. A subsequent association with Alan McGee’s Creation label resulted in the somber 1987 album The Poison Boyfriend and the homoerotic 1988 release Tender Pervert. Even more explicit sexual content appeared on the following year’s Don’t Stop the Night, which addressed taboo subjects such as incest and necrophilia. With 1991’s Hippopotamomus—dedicated to the late Serge Gainsbourg—Momus encountered backlash; the album, described as “a record about sex for children,” drew criticism from feminists and prompted a lawsuit from Michelin U.K. over a lyric referencing their mascot, the Michelin Man. The suit was settled out of court, after which remaining copies were destroyed.

Momus continued undeterred, releasing two 1992 albums: The Ultraconformist and the ambient Voyager, shaped by Yukio Mishima’s writings. He wrote the 1993 album Shyness for Japanese performer nOrikO, who later took the stage name Poison Girlfriend in tribute to Momus, and delivered Timelord, his final Creation project. Currie made tabloid news with his 1994 marriage to 17-year-old Shazna Nessa, daughter of a Bangladesh-born restauranteur. The pair had first met when she was 14; after her parents discovered the relationship she was sent to Bangladesh for an arranged marriage, yet she escaped and returned to London to wed Currie, leading the couple to live in hiding amid concerns that her family might abduct her.

Living in exile in Paris, Currie signed with Cherry Red and resurfaced in 1995 with The Philosophy of Momus, an eclectic album ranging from reggae to blues to techno that contained the indie hit “The Sadness of Things,” recorded with Ken Morioka of Soft Ballet. Later that year came Slender Sherbet, a set of re-recordings from the Tender Pervert era, just as Momus achieved success in Japan writing and producing for Kahimi Karie, resulting in five consecutive Top Five hits.

The 1996 collection 20 Vodka Jellies, consisting of demos performed by Momus for Karie, became his first U.S. release. In addition to writing and producing for Nessa’s band Milky and the magazine Blender, Currie closed the year by writing, producing, and programming This Must Stop. He issued Ping Pong in 1997 and followed with the inventive The Little Red Songbook in 1998. Stars Forever, released in 1999, stood as perhaps his most provocative statement—conceived to cover substantial legal costs for his American label Le Grand Magistery, each song was commissioned for $1,000 by patrons ranging from Cornelius to the staff of New York City publicity firm Girlie Action and composed to their specifications. Folktronic appeared in early 2001, and two years later he debuted on his own American Patchwork label with Oskar Tennis Champion.

Analog released the 2003 double-disc compilation Forbidden Software Timemachine: Best of the Creation Years, 1987-1993, followed by the chanson-forward Otto Spooky in 2005 and Ocky Milk in 2006. In 2008 Currie collaborated with Glaswegian producer Joe Howe on JOEMUS, issued via the Analog Baroque imprint, and presented the YouTube-inspired Hypnoprism in 2010. Thunderclown, a project with John Henriksson, arrived in 2011, succeeded by the British horror film-inspired Bibliotek in 2012. The year 2013 brought Bambi along with the first MOMUSMCCLYMONT installment, a collaboration with ex-Orange Juice member David McClymont; MOMUSMCCLYMONT II followed in 2014, then the triple-LP Turpsycore and Japanese folk-inspired Glyptothek in 2015.

Scobberlotchers, released in 2016, addressed Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, while 2017’s Pillycock drew partial influence from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life films (Arabian Nights, The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales). Momus returned in 2018 with Pantaloon, a topical cabaret album coinciding with his move to Berlin. The following year he bought an accordion in a junk shop and composed an album featuring the instrument; titled Akkordion (blending German and English spellings), it appeared on Creation Records in October 2019. He documented the Covid-19 pandemic and his suspected case on the brooding 2020 album Vivid and took a lighter view of lockdown on the vibrant 2021 Athenian. References to Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin Britten, and David Bowie’s Lodger surfaced throughout the idiosyncratic 2022 release Smudger. Later that year he examined themes of sexual orientation and gender identity on the pop-oriented Issyvoo. ~ Jason Ankeny