Johnson, Robb & the Irregulars - Pandemic Songs (CD) |

Pandemic Songs is songwriter Robb Johnson’s chronicle in song of the unprecedented events of the first half of 2020. His critically-acclaimed family histories of the 20th Century Gentle Men & Ordinary Giants use song to dramatise past lives & narrate significant historical events & processes. Pandemic Songs uses songs to provide a media-free perspective of contemporary history, with thirteen tracks written between March & June of this year, that record & comment on the global pandemic, from Robb’s local UK perspective. The songs are angry, sad, affectionate, elegiac, satirical, anxious, & compassionate. They celebrate our lives in lockdown & the endurance of our keyworkers, & catalogue the vanities, incompetence, hypocrisy & failures of those in power. Pandemic Songs was recorded with a socially-distanced pared-down version of The Irregulars; John Forrester on bass & vocals, Arvin Johnson on drums, percussion & Spanish guitar, & Fae Simon on vocals. The result is a powerful, visceral album, a significant creative response to these very significant times. Robb Johnson is now widely recognised as one of the UK’s finest songwriters: “An English original”, - The Guardian...