Charles Stuart
The Man Who Likes Watching

The Man Who Likes Watching is the debut solo album by inventive singer and songwriter Charles Stuart and plays like a surreal cocktail of Marvin Gaye with Badly Drawn Boy. It offers a sly and witty portrayal of London life from the playful sunflower to the dark and disturbing accidents involving pedestrians. bliss in here is the inverted hiphop operetta of a slacker plainclothes police man, silence on trains is a quickie romance of a tube journey, and in the title track he dreams his father morphs into hardman Gene Hackman.

An urban album salted with soul and peppered with subversive humour, Charles draws on his British/Dominican heritage to deliver a soulful dub-reggae,folk, experimental, groovy kind of leftfield pop.

Charles worked closely with producer Frank Byng to record the album and capture its distinctive rich and quirky sound with an array of South-East London's finest musicians contributing to the line-up.

This is original, thought-provoking and utterly compelling stuff. Wiry electronica, candid observation and shadowy imaginings juxtaposed against Stuart's velvety vocal harmonies and a rich infusion of funk, soul, dub, jazz and drum n' bass.
-Matt Dowsett (prerelease review)

... Marvin Gaye-meets-Brian Eno... some holy bionic spawn of a sensible Lee Perry and a stoned Goldie... the lyrics suggest... all manner of urban shadowplay, with their sly wit and crepuscular observations... A provocative collection by a wonderfully warped artist.-
The Guardian online
(band of the day no.96 - 04/05/07)