If nothing else, you've got to give Julian Cope credit for sheer, pigheaded perseverance in his idiosyncratic view of the world. Consider: Back in the early '80s, Cope was climbing the charts with The Teardrop Explodes. A stunning melodist and clever and off-centrically compelling lyricist, Cope was also a riveting frontman with rock-star charisma to burn (and the only man alive who should be allowed to wear leather trousers). He seemed primed for stardom, but the usual interband squabbles and label cluelessness (and, it seems, Cope's gobbling of a candystore's worth of hallucinogens) interfered. Rather than attempt a solo ascent to the top of the charts, Cope's recordings became increasingly obscure both musically and lyrically, peeling off in several directions at once (Krautrock, bedroom solo rhythm-box and acoustic, expansive Hawkwind space exploration, ambient abstraction...) and writing copious liner notes full of sociopolitical and archaeological arcana. The usual explanation (not exactly discouraged by the notorious cover art for his second solo album Fried, featuring a naked Cope crouching on all fours beneath a massive tortoise shell while pushing a toy truck along the ground) was that he'd followed Uncle Syd Barrett down the twisted forest path to Cuckoo Candyland. That explanation, though, is way too easy, and it also overlooks entirely Cope's prodigious and impressive output over the years, not only in music but in a series of renowned books (on Krautrock and pagan archaeological sites). At any rate, after a lengthy hiatus, here's Copey making music again. Brain Donor (in typical Cope fashion, the name conveys both mindlessness and giving head) is his attempt to release his inner Iggy: he and his two platform-soled, doubleneck-wielding cohorts pummel a pair of weighty riffs into a molten sludge. (And since Iggy himself has been so pathetically clueless of late, it's a good thing someone's doing it.) "Shaman U.F.O." is particularly relentless, with its wounded pterodactyl guitar solo. (A full-length album, entitled Love Peace and Fuck, is forthcoming.) An Audience with the Cope is anchored by the lengthy, four-part track "The Glam Dicenn," an epic dissertation on goddess knows what - but it sounds cool as fuck, with masses of archaic keyboards, tympani, brick-pulverizing bass, and spacey machine-gabble. In between (the CD is framed by two parts each, at beginning and end, of "The Glam Dicenn"), Cope assays garagey rock ("Born to Breed"), riff-based repetition ("Ill Informer"), and his purest, prettiest pop song in years, "Holy Mother of God." Despite the oversimplified descriptions, each track draws from many of Cope's wide-ranging musical interests to create sonic variety, yet somehow An Audience with the Cope sounds more unified as an album than anything Cope's released in the last ten years. One of the few long-running performers whose outsized ego and eccentricities are more than matched by talent, Julian Cope is back, freak flag flying high. Long may it wave.

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