Cranes

"The cranes, they built this town, girder by girder, so high off the ground. The temps' off-the-phone voices gossip as they type. And they file to the tube every night at five o'clock. And the clerks knock back their halves and pints, look at the crosswords and girls' legs 'til the train's next stop. And the cranes, they built this town and not even a war could bring it down ..." croons Callahan on Moonshake's Cranes from 1996's Dirty & Divine set. A swift look at the credits on that record reveals the way lines were becoming nicely blurred at the time, where post-rock mingled with trip hop and Krautrock legend Michael Rother sat in on drums. Callahan's previous outfit had been underground pop legends The Wolfhounds, and their fiery works include the song Skyscrapers which features some very pointed aphorisms such as "just because the world is dying doesn't mean we should give up fighting" and "just because it's a monument doesn't mean that you remember. marble smashed into pieces. Hardcore for new motorways ...". And this was the future people were supposed to be fighting for ...