This is weird. Euros Childs has spent a decade writing wistful folk for
the superbly sad Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, only to issue a slice of
eighties disco cheese as a first solo single. Inspired by a holiday in
Greece, Donkey Island resembles nothing so much as the Birdie Song: all
cheap keyboards and chirpy riffs. The lyrics rhyme "donkeys are like you and
me" with "swim in the sea".
Weirdest of all, the result is not, on close inspection, a wholesale
departure. Replace the keyboards with fiddle, turn up the slide that
already touches this arrangement and you've got standard Mynci. In any case,
Childs' peerlessly downcast voice remains intact.
It's a provoking combination, and one that grows on you more than you'd
think. But it's hard to feel that this is anything much more than a
promising song spoiled by whimsy. Childs has always had a good sense of
humour, and this might work well amid more conventional songs - he has
always known how to sculpt an album. As a single, though, it's only really
worth it for the novelty.
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