Scott Walker: 30 Century Man review

From boyband-ish heartthrob to avant-garde soundscapist, Scott Walker has come a long way. In the ’60s he applied his babe-magnet baritone to balladeering as a Walker Brother and solo crooner. After his ambitious fourth solo album flopped, he left the limelight and sporadically re-emerged with the odd enigmatic/bonkers noise-scape album, recently involving slapped-pig percussion. Director Stephen Kijak trims the fat from the enigma in this faintly fawning but mostly measured portrait. As David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker and Goldfrapp coo about Scott’s influence, Walker himself is coolly self-deprecating. Passing comments about time spent “imbibing” aside, Walker’s private personal life is downplayed, the focus sitting on his creative development, so that he emerges as the kind of genuine article who lets the music do the talking. The proof of the pig is in the pounding: it sounds good.