In 1988, Cardiacs released 'A Little Man And A House And The Whole World Window', their fourth album. It is, however, widely regarded as their debut being the first to be released on a format other than cassette. Yep, lovely vinyl. Mmmmmm... It was their best sounding record to date and featured a number of long-time faves from their live set, re-recordings of tracks that featured on the low-budget cassette albums from previous years, and a sprinkling of new songs. All these were the definitive versions.
In A City Lining had appeared on the live album 'Rude Bootleg' a couple years before but this was its first (and only) studio outing. It's another six minutes of madness - multiple time signatures, key-changes, speeding up, slowing down, stopping, starting, gleaming, shining... it's a rout, a tour-de-farce, a load of complete nonsense, and a total and utter delight.
It's hard to pick a highlight from 'A Little Man And A House...'. OK, no it's not - that has to be Is This The Life, the song that got me into them in the first place. In A City Lining runs it a close second though, probably. It's great fun of course, but also another audacious display of Mr Smith's specialness.
This is where it started for me too. Discovered the track on a compilation track, went to see them in concert (My Bloody Valentine were supposed to be the support but pulled out) and the rest is history. Not sure it is my favourite on the album, that varies between In A City Lining and RES, but it is bloody brilliant.
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