London, UK · spoken-word pop

Baxter Dury

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Louche London spoken-word pop — Ian Dury's boy, filthy and funny over silk grooves, delivering seedy character studies like a lounge singer gone wrong.

Baxter Dury was born in 1971 in London, the son of Ian Dury and his wife Elizabeth "Betty" Rathmell, and appeared as a child on the cover of his father's 1977 album New Boots and Panties!! He left school at fourteen. The 2010 biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, based on his father's life, features Bill Milner playing Baxter as a boy.

His records pair spoken or half-sung vocals, delivered in a flat London accent, with smooth arrangements: soft basslines, string and synth pads, and female backing vocals that answer or undercut the narrator. The lyrics tend toward first-person portraits of unreliable, self-deluding men, played for comedy as often as menace.

Dury began releasing his own records in the early 2000s, originally signed to Rough Trade Records; his 2002 Oscar Brown EP was made Record of the Week by NME. He later signed to PIAS subsidiary Le Label, releasing the album It's a Pleasure in 2014, before moving to Heavenly Recordings in 2017.

His fifth album, Prince of Tears, followed in 2017, produced with Ash Workman and mixed by longtime collaborator Craig Silvey, with guest vocals from Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods and Rose Elinor Dougall, and backing vocals throughout from Madelaine Hart. It was named Album of the Week by both the Guardian and the Sunday Times, and Mojo called it a career-best record. Dury headlined London's KOKO, sold out Shepherd's Bush Empire, and supported Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds on tour.

In 2018 he released B.E.D, a collaboration with French producer Étienne de Crécy and Delilah Holliday of Skinny Girl Diet, recorded largely in de Crécy's Paris studio. The following year he appeared on a Fat White Family single, and announced his sixth studio album, The Night Chancers.

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spoken-word pop