CORNERSHOP - Judy Sucks A Lemon CORNERSHOP

Reissue of Cornershop's 2009 critically-acclaimed studio album Judy Sucks A Lemon
Remastered at Third Man Records, Detroit with lacquers cut at Abbey Road

Cornershop will reissue their classic 2009 'Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast' album on Feb 26th, 2027, as a x500 limited pressing on 'Waltham Abbey Transparent Orange' colour vinyl.

The album has been remastered at Third Man Mastering in Detroit, with lacquers cut at Abbey Road by Alex Wharton.

The vinyl edition of this album was originally released as a small run of double albums housed in a poster bag in a poly bag with no card sleeve. This new reissue sees the double album housed in a Gatefold Sleeve for the first time, with the track order altered and a track title change made compared to the original pressing in 2009.

Cornershop's 2009 album 'Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast' is another longplayer of inspiration and choice from the group. Oshira Matagosi of the Japanese X-Reflex magazine said upon it's release in 2009 "its the best album this
decade since their last album this decade" & that's not a bad way to start off the century. On that note, Rob Da Bank, Radio 1 described it at the time as "encompassing the best of 40 years of music into one album."

Likewise "Solid Gold Sounds - Solid Gold Value, the best 30 years of your record collection," asserted Nusrat Durrani, of MTV America.

They're back again, and Cornershop have lost none of what the first eleven call 'form.' Bringing up their kids may have renewed their interest in simple upbeat music and algebra, but they could have waited another 7 years, the album would still be fresh.

Side A.
1. The Roll Off Characteristics (Of History In The Making)
This anti-war, pro-people song states "War ain't nothing but technical plip-plop." Rough
Trade Shop state "it has all the markings of classic Cornershop."
2. Soul School
As all around us breaks up, & time like
"ice cream, is running down the cone,"
music & a good grounding of it gets us through.
Parallel thirds over a strong steady beat.
3. Half Brick
This funk is a few blocks long.
4. Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast
The title track gives you a day in the life of Judy
& her deejay partner Jo-Jo, whilst "All the children
(in Gregory Park) sip on the single grain."

Side B.
5. The Phantom Wog
A commemoration to The Southall Riots.
6. Free Love
Sounds your eyes can follow. This psychedelic trip comes to you in a tidy package - the original
is 56minutes in duration. Cornershop's engineer is still insisting it should have been the first
single release from the album!

7.Who Fingered Rock'n'Roll
This heavy duty rock comments on music industry
changes, & asks "if Rocks Salad is the good
looking slow ballad, who fingered Rock'n'Roll?"
Best not play this starter too loud.

Side C.
8. Operation Push
The opening line: "Operation push passed go at Mexico," reiterates how ahead of the game it
gets. Even though it's about health & the environment you can still sing in the shower and
whistle to it on the street. Health with vitality.
9. The Mighty Quinn
A most cherished Dylan cover replete with Laurel Canyon backing harmonies.
10. The Constant Springs
Walking through Brooklyn in the sunshine, I know "I'm Phil Fearon, & you are Galaxy" its
there to treasure, "cork it."
11. Chamchu
Already the signature tune for Bombay's Desi Dhol Radio, proving that a good cook never
looks at a cookery book.

Side D.
12. The Turned On Truth (The Truth Is Turned On)
"It was the upper limit that did attest the upper spirit" demonstrates the fortitude of mankind
under pressure & depicts the glories of the future, all within a 16 minute tablet.

In short 'Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast' is an armoury of surefire which "confirms them as the most vital and inventive force at work in British pop," Telegraph.
Not many can say they have fans transgressing across the likes of Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Nelly Furtado, Jonathon Demme, Morrissey, George Clooney, Elijah Wood, Paramjit Pummi & Don Letts and yet still remain heavily liked by kids between the ages of two to ninety two, & special mention to the North London reggae fraternity.
This album should gain a treasured place in the forefront of any record collection, once again. Back again.

ORIGINAL PRESS
‘Judy Sucks A Lemon is instantly amazing’ - NME

‘As interesting and adventurous a career as The Beatles’ - THE OBSERVER

‘Pretty much majestic’ - 4/5 UNCUT

‘This bold fresh sounding album makes them a candidate for the quintessential 21st century pop group’ - 4/5 MOJO

Cornershop Biography by Professor Kenneth Fitzgerald:

Cornershop‘s career is defined by defiantly unconventional moves, in its sound and approach to music making. Foremost is a determination stated by Tjinder Singh, “The only thing that all our records have in common is that each one tries to sound utterly different.” It’s a resolve Cornershop has delivered on since its launch in 1993. They began as a raucous guitar-based agit-pop-group – with a difference. Amidst the thrilling din was Punjabi-sung tracks accompanied by sitar and dholki. Captured first on the EPs In the Days of Ford Cortina and Lock Stock and Double Barrel, Cornershop issued their debut LP, Hold On It Hurts in 1994. Though still rough and direct, the album’s tracks displayed textures exhibiting a broader musical vocabulary and intent.

Amongst Hold On It Hurts‘s admirers was David Byrne, who signed Cornershop in the U.S.to his Luaka Bop label, proclaiming, “We could see that they were headed in a direction that no one else dared travel. And we liked it.” The new transatlantic partnership boosted 1995‘s Woman’s Gotta Have It, one of the most startling and venturesome sophomore albums released by a band. The Asian/western mixes and sonic experiments bloomed and took center stage, notably in the U.K. and U.S. club success 6 A.M. Jullandar Shere.

Cornershop‘s breakthrough Mercury nominated 1997 record, When I Was Born for the 7th Time, initiated unprecedented international acclaim. The record is a landmark of sonic invention and adventure, a cornucopia of compelling pan-cultural grooves. The album boasts Cornershop‘s signature track Brimful of Asha, possessing the most unlikely – yet inclusive – refrain in pop music history: “Everyone needs a bosom for a pillow.” It also included notable collaborations with Allen Ginsberg, The Automator, and a cover of The Beatles ‘Norwegian Wood’ sung in Punjabi. When I Was Born for the 7th Time was included in Rolling Stone‘s “Essential Recordings of the 90′s,” and Spin ranked it #34 in their “90 Greatest Albums of the ’90s” – after making it #1 in their “Top 20 Albums Of The Year” (besting, amongst others, Radiohead’s OK Computer). Similar rankings came from Q, NME, Melody Maker, and The Village Voice, amongst others. Cornershop‘s recorded response to the attention was true to form and its self. Rather than building the Cornershop brand, they adopted the “Clinton” avatar for 1999‘s Disco and the Halfway to Discontent. The gratifying success of When I Was Born seemed irrelevant to where Singh and Ayres (now the core of the group and remaining original members) wanted to go. The destination was the dance floor. Disco is a laid back yet insistent collection of fizzy grooves containing the hallmark guest vocals, stylistic twists, and a toolbox of genres. It provided further proof (if needed) that Singh‘s sonic imagination seemed limitless.

This was especially evident when Cornershop quadruple-downs in 2002 on its next album – and masterpiece to date – Handcream for a Generation. On the surface, the record follows its predecessor’s path: some band-performances, scratch and sample collages, genre exercises, and cross cultural fusions traversing reggae, funk, and soul. Tracks are longer and more fully realized, starring a diverse guest cast including legendary soul singer Otis Clay, Noel Gallagher and Guigsy of Oasis, and London reggae figures Jack Wilson and Kojak. Handcream achieves its singular status for being the band’s most extensively ambitious and fulfilling of the band’s aesthetic. After touring in support of Handcream, Tjinder Singh announces a leave of absence to work on a film about the independent music industry. However, in a “creative splurge,” Cornershop releases a double A side single, Topknot/Natch on Rough Trade in 2004, its initial collaboration with the Bubbley Kaur. Where Handcream was expansive and complex, these tracks are stunningly intimate and simple, seamlessly fusing Kaur‘s haunting Punjabi vocals with funk-inspired rhythms.

Cornershop‘s maternity leave ends with the 2009 release of Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast on its own Ample Play label. After a trio of assertively far-reaching records, Judy’s relative simplicity is startling in its own right. Cornershop is here to rock – but in its own inimitable way. If traditional chorus-verse songs with great riffs and hooky melodies are the intent, Judy provides them on every track. After Brimful of Asha, there should be no doubt in Singh's ability to pen abiding tunes. Judy proves he can deliver an album’s worth. Judy is a coup of a flexible and seasoned live-capable band. In its most direct and appealing album, Cornershop stays true to defying expectations and making the move appear radical. Close after Judy comes the culmination of further collaboration with Bubbley Kaur, the 2010 album Cornershop and the Double O Groove of. At the heart of the record is Tjinder Singh‘s desire to “mix western music with Punjabi folk in a way that wasn’t crude.” “Western music” encompasses a multiplicity of stances and Singh doesn’t skimp, offering ten stylistically dissimilar tracks, unified in accomplishment in framing Bubbley Kaur‘s mellifluous melodies. Post-Double ‘O’ saw the May 2011 launch of Ample Play‘s The Singhles Club, a six-tracks-for a 6 pound subscription service. The project offers limited edition outtakes “reimagining the collectable single in a digital format with special added content; a digital popadom.” It’s a novel approach to distribution that like the music it offers, abounds in adventure and invention. The resultant tracks were compiled onto an album in the form of 2012’s The Urban Turban.

More recently, in a move few would have predicted, Cornershop released in 2015 a reimagined version of their debut album Hold On, It Hurts entitled Hold On, It’s Easy the tracks arranged for Orchestra, with an easy listening swing, inspired by the likes of the maverick composer and conductor Johnny Harris and Henry Mancini amongst others. Now, in 2020 we see the release of perhaps their most ambitious album to date, England Is A Garden, a catchy, thought provoking, intriguing state of the nation address that comes across almost like a ‘best of’ album comprised of songs never heard before. With Cornershop, the only certainty is that something distinctly new is on the way.

- Kenneth FitzGerald

Associate Professor of Art - Old Dominion University, Norfolk Virginia USA