When a man wearing a black woolen face-mask and a dirty raincoat with not much underneath takes the stage to let rip with a series of homo-erotic confessionals set to a dirty synth-pop back-drop, one could be forgiven for suspecting the vice squad might be paying a call soon. The truth is, when Special Love break cover to play live next week for the first time in a decade, their onanistically inclined vignettes will probably sound as charmingly old-school as the MySpace page – one of the only means of hearing the few rough recordings which survived the band itself. Special Love existed for one year only in 2005, when the pseudonymous duo of Johnny Dave and Charlie George came together to fuse their lusty tales of after-hours voyeurism and other solitary fantasies. As tongue in cheek as their schtick was during live shows tailor-made for alternative cabaret nights of yore, Special Love nevertheless mixed the squelch of The Normal’s Warm Leatherette and Nag, Nag, Nag era Cabaret Voltaire with gleeful abandon. A now hard to find six-track EP, I Want To Touch You, is all that was left behind after the final Special Love show almost a decade to the day of this one-off revival. With Johnny Dave now flying solo in every way since Charlie George opted for a respectable life, the Special Love experience is well worth washing your hands for, both before and after the show.

Special Love play Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh, December 30^th 2015, 7pm, with Dominic Waxing Lyrical, Dancing Mice and The DDN. https://myspace.com/specialloveisdead

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