Confessions of a Tender Pervert

As for his extracurricular activities, Currie's been writing songs for such diverse performers as Japanese hit chick Kahimi Karie and French wanna-rocker Laila France. "I like to write for somebody. It's almost like an art director or stylist saying, 'Let's dress somebody like a Barbie doll.' Kahimi Karie is almost my Japanese Barbie doll, and I can tell her what dress she's gonna be wearing. It's a kind of psychic and cultural transvestitism which goes on when I work, because I get to be a cute Japanese girl. That fascinates me, having my fantasy endorsed by this person who goes along with it." Additionally, he's remixed Pizzicato 5's "Trailer Music" single and collaborated with Jacques, whose home's another intellipop label, Setanta.

Things are happening, wheels are turning, and Momus is finally rolling into Los Angeles. Stir up some friends for the occasion - until Stephen Duffy or Boo Hewardine break through, Momus represents America's greatest hope for smart, aesthetic material, bitten with wit, decorated by originality, and unlike anything you've ever heard. This epiphany caused me to shift and ask him how he feels about this sudden dam breaking. "Well, since I'm nominated as one of Time Out New York's 98 people to watch in '98, in the intro to which they say, 'This is fresh, young, new talent and a few old dogs who've learned new tricks,' I guess I come under the latter category. My sensibility was maybe a little bit ahead of its time with the loungecore thing in the '80s, and that's sort of come back.

"Also, I think what's happened is that my fans tend to start off as nerdy, misunderstood adolescents but in later life end up being editors for magazines and TV programs, so my media profile now is amazingly exaggerated. Every single person who ever bought a Momus record is now either in Pulp or in Suede, or they're running the arts pages of the local newspaper. I'm delighted that there's a certain momentum in my career, that it's never tailed off. It's always been a very gentle upward slope, but at this rate of improvement I'll probably be 'famous' in 2037, when I'm dead."

Momus makes an in-store appearance at No Life Records on Wednesday, February 18, and performs at LunaPark on Thursday, February19.