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John Martyn: Philentropy (Body Swerve)

Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 3 December 1983

THERE ARE those – and they are many in today's athletic Popular-hypertrophic music field – who can impress a vocal line upon a certain heavily overworked, resonant back-tracking; but mostly they lack, in their build, in their brassy confidence, the ease which seems to mark out the eternal singer. . . Someone, who – seemingly cut out for nothing other than singing – endures, whose song breathes: a song not necessarily filled with remarks, which cuts free.

Total word count of piece: 702

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