marcel

It all starts (again) with four notes on the kazoo. Distorted, manifold, as if played by a hundred enraged children, ready for a good old-fashioned brawl between enemy lines.

Crass, DJ Furax and This Heat who would be stepping on nails dancing a country jig on a rickety floor. 

The tense, snarling vocals reflect the millennia-old fury that saw the peoples of Europe clash violently, more or less until the Champions League of football came into being in 1955. A time when war became a matter for gentlemen in shorts, perfectly in control of their martial impulses. On paper.

So, fire lives in football players as it did in the veins of the most hardened medieval knights. Today, this fire is more or less domesticated, tamed, or softened, if you will. It's a stadium fire, a “camp” fire contained in concrete. But it's always there, soaking humanity, stubborn. “Cursed wedge”, some might say, while others might call it a ‘divine gift’.

Produced and mixed by Ben Hampson (DITZ, Lambrini Girls,...), “spirit of eden hazard kicking ball-boy” is the first single from marcel's second album, due spring 2025 on Luik Music and Geographie. The album is about fire in all forms: productivity madness, all-consuming obsessions, volcanic eruptions, carnal desire, corporate burn-out, horse kicks, heroic death drives in combat, et cetera. All in good fun!

For example, “spirit...” enters the mind of Eden Hazard, overlord of Belgian soccer and modern-day gladiator, on the day he saw red: the red of the card he was shown during a match with Chelsea in 2013, after shooting into the belly of Charlie Morgan, a sneaky ball-boy from Swansea who had tried to buy time for his team by lying on the ball in stoppage time—the rascal. 

Hubris. The will to power, the “I got the ball”: the ingredients of rivalry. The ingredients of sport. But how many steps exist between a clean tackle and the desire to eviscerate your fellow man over a territorial dispute? 

Or is it a media exaggeration, the secret of which only the English tabloids know? 

Why is it that human beings, particularly masc ones, can't sit in a chair facing the sun for more than two hours without wanting to prove something? 

Perhaps the lack of sunlight drove the peoples of the North to wage war and piss off those who enjoyed the sun. Weren't the Vikings considered the fiercest warriors? How many days of sunshine a year in Scandinavia, hmm? And why did Eden stop playing soccer at 32, precisely after soaking up the sun on the Real Madrid bench?

To be explored…

Anyway, Eden and young Charlie, son of the Swansea club's CEO, enjoyed a glass of Charlie's own brand of vodka, brought to life by daddy's money, after a game of golf.