Mary Coughlan’s 12th album marks the end of a 13-year relationship and explores the widest range of emotions and subjects, from sexual allure to prostitution, pornography and all manner of pleasures, be they legal or healthy or neither. And they rarely come more consistently open, nor more painfully honest, than this.
The title-track has a wild Brechtian quality, vintage Coughlan at her bawdiest, brassiest best. She brings a rakish exuberance to Kirsty MacColl’s ‘Bad’, and there are chilling uilleann pipes on ‘Antarctica’ that match Coughlan’s forlorn vocal and the ice-cold lyrics. ‘Whore Of Babylon’ has a primitive world music feel to it, and ‘Pornography’ is deceptively jaunty, while Coughlan teases her way through ‘Love Is Extra’.
Nobody in Ireland, and few elsewhere, would have the courage to record an album that serves as such a blatant expose of the ins and outs and ups and downs of rampant sex and adventurous relationships.

KEY TRACK: ‘THE HOUSE OF ILL-REPUTE’