You'll see men with no future, they were wiped out in the war

Thursday music corner: Mozart Estate formed in London in 1999 under the name Go-Kart Mozart, led by singer / songwriter Lawrence Hayward, who only goes by his first name. In 2018 Lawrence changed the band's name to Mozart Estate. Under both names combined the band has issued five albums and five singles since forming. 

The jauntily bleak Relative Poverty is the lead single from the most recent album, Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! and the Possibilities of Modern Shopping, released in January 2023. The single was released in a special vinyl edition for Record Store Day. It had originally appeared in an earlier version on Go-Kart Mozart's fourth album, 2018's Mozart's Mini-Mart. Speaking to the Guardian's Ryan Gilbey in July 2022 from his East London council flat, Lawrence points out that the poverty he refers to definitely isn't of the ironic variety:

“There came a point where I learned to live on nothing. I’d have two pence in my pocket, and I’d find a bench on the King’s Road hoping someone would sit next to me so I could ask for a cigarette. No one ever did because I looked so rough.”

Mozart Estate - Relative Poverty (2022)

See also:

Music: The La's - Doledrum (1990)

Music: The Chills - Doledrums (1986)

Music: UB40 - Food For Thought (1980)