Fegmania!

Much of Robyn Hitchcock’s output has felt like an ongoing dialogue with his own work. After the elaborate production of his second solo album, Groovy Decay, he stripped down for the all-acoustic I Often Dream of Trains. From there he formed the Egyptians with members of his previous band, the Soft Boys, to make Fegmania!, an album considered to be among his most artistically successful by his expanding cult following. And it was a triumph that delivered in its own way on the promise Hitchcock showed with the Soft Boys’ Underwater Moonlight. The album pulses with a mix of ‘60s melodic influences and ‘80s new wave urgency. Hitchcock writes with a touch of surreal dementia (“My Wife and My Dead Wife,” “The Man With the Lightbulb Head,” “Insect Mother”) and an expert sense of pop (“Another Bubble,” “Strawberry Mind”). Each time his albums have been reissued they’ve included different bonus cuts that shed light on his creative process, as Hitchcock’s sketches are often more revealing than his fully-colored finished works.