Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – Cruel Summer EP

To coincide with what Aidan Moffat calls his ‘first proper tour in five years’ the former Arab Strap raconteur and current collaborator Bill Wells reveal their take on the Bananarama classic once featured in The Karate Kid. Not a sentence you expect to write often.

Somehow the blend of Moffat’s solemn vocal and Wells’ sombre instrumentation lend themselves well and the cover works without the sense of irony you might expect on paper. The real bones of the EP are, the seemingly nostalgic yet fractured, Box It Up and Man of the Cloth, a spoken-word number which places Moffat as a Halloween partygoer returning home dressed as a priest.

From the latter’s opening, fans will be primed for another of the storytellers finest. ‘“Father” she said “have you got a minute”. It was the first of November and I was still in costume’ Yet what’s more striking is how well suited these apparent reminiscences are to Wells’ wistful accompaniment, and how serendipitous their coming together.