'Do I look like a homicidal maniac to you?'

PSYCHO KILLER

ANDREA PARKER is one spooky lady. ANDREA Parker's stunning "The Rocking hair" contains everything you could ever imagine in a record. That's if your imagination runs asfaras a 40-piece orchestra, a beat like a submarine hitting the ocean floor and an evil, chilled, strings- led atmosphereredolent of Hitchcock's "Psycho". On top ofall this, Andrea's stark vocal ("Behind you...) sounds like she was let out ofthe cemetery specially to record it. "There is an element of a 'Psycho'-type thing to a lot of my tunes," admits Andrea, former psychiatric nurse, trained cellist, serial cackler. "People are gonna think I'm possessed or something. Hyuk, Hyuk. I just spend time thinking."

Andrea thinks. Andrea's mind plays tricks. Andrea is accident prone and dangerous. This morning, shethrewafag out of a window and it blew up a car. "But I don't like happy songs," she insists. "They have to be quite deep. I won't tell you exactly what 'The Rocking Chair' is about but it does involve involve being haunted by someone. Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk. "Is 'The Rocking Chair' about Normal Bates' mum's chair? Ha! Nah, hyuk, hyuk, hyuk. It's cos ofthe tempo. It's in 3/4, just like a rocking chair. Although, if you listen carefully I have sampled a knife!"
DAVE SIMPSON

Originally appeared in Melody Maker or NME 23 November 1996.