As The Creeping Bent Organisation winds down operations after 30 years on the frontline of the art/pop interface, it is only fitting that one of its swansong releases gets back to its roots. As a label mainstay from the start, The Secret Goldfish’s fourth opus pulls together a collection of cover versions guest-starring a posse of fellow travellers. The result is a delirious pop mash-up of influence and homage that joins several generations of assorted rock family tree-type dots while still sounding every inch The Secret Goldfish.

Much of this is down to vocalist Katy Lironi, who takes songs by Vic Godard, ex-Orange Juice guitarist James Kirk and Fire Engine-turned-Sexual Object Davy Henderson and makes them her own. There is also something Proustian in hearing Lironi sing The Shop Assistants’ mournful ‘Somewhere In China’, Godard’s ‘Stop That Girl’ and Henderson’s Nectarine No 9-era ‘22 Blue’ with a cast list that includes Godard and Kirk themselves.

Released on vinyl, the 12 cuts also include a brand-new song, ‘Louche Life’, written with Lironi’s partner in life and art, Douglas MacIntyre, plus ‘Elevator’, a long-lost collaboration with Jim Beattie of Adventures In Stereo. This all makes for a perfect primer, both of The Secret Goldfish and the leftfield indie-pop landscape that sired the guests on this parallel-universe variety show.
The Secret Goldfish: Empty Holster is released by Creeping Bent/Last Night From Glasgow on Friday 20 June.