Four Five

FFO: Hood, GBV, Lungfish, The Breeders. 45 songs to commemorate 45 years of Sweet Williams aka Thomas House. Patchwork quilt or collaged map, this is his weirdest, funniest and darkest record to date. Thomas House has been busy in the two years since Sweet Williams’ last LP. “I got very nervous about playing live, so I stopped. Quit all the bands I was playing in, stayed at home in Zaragoza with the cat and made tunes between classes.” Tunes that grew from fragments on old tapes or came fully formed in dreams in the small hours. He was sending us (Wrong Speed Records) a fistful of new songs every couple of weeks. Nobody knew where this was leading. There was a half-joke about House releasing his own version of The White Album, until another artist close to our hearts beat him to it. Then we realised: House turns forty-five in 2025. How about forty-five songs to celebrate Bringing in neighbour Carl Jehle to co-produce, the pair spent last summer putting Four Five together in long, delirious sessions, stretching through the forty-plus midafternoon heat into the balmy small hours. More than a hundred songs were on the table. A significant chunk of the work was completed while House recovered from emergency dental surgery – “the worst pain I have ever experienced”. The results, House says, can be taken as a whole “if you’re mad enough,” or as three separate LPs. “The first one’s dark and dreamy, the second one’s got all the short and funny songs, and the third one wraps it up. I don’t wanna spoil the ending.” What’s clear is that a triple LP has afforded the possibility to stretch out in directions Sweet Williams have not previously explored. Tape loops and warped, sampled voices butt up against brief, punky earworms. Influences are either worn on sleeves – PIL, The Amps, Beefheart – or nigh impossible to discern. Ever present, as ever, are repetition, space, and the sputtering growl of petrol guitars. Four Five is a masterpiece. The perfect mix of spontaneity and obsession; of serendipity and sheer force of will. Not to mention maybe the only justifiable triple album ever made. “I thought this might be the last one, obviously, but then again obviously not. I’m just getting started.”