Tag: 2008

This isn’t easy listening for ironic twatsters, this is galactically groovy space soul. There’s a lot of hard-core Hammond action, great swathes of funky organ twiddling demanding you immediately cut a rug. ‘Feel it’ is The Spencer Davies Group kicking it in tin-foil space-suits. ‘Rock Me’ is snotty sixties garage spun into orbit, stomping along on a dirty bass-line, then weirding out amongst the stars with some oddball whirry bleeping sounds. ‘The Horn’ switches pleasingly between a sweetly summery organ riff and sinuous 70s cop show funk. ‘Space Meter’ is a low-down, hip-swinging psychedelic astro groove that Primal Scream are wishing they thought of. ‘Paris Colonade’, sounds like a breezily sophisticated spin around the city and we’re promised Holly Golightly is somewhere on the track amongst the Gitane-tinged ‘la la la las’. ‘Marimba Down At The Hare’ contrasts elegant, almost Japanese sounding marimba playing with some slippery jazz piano. All this, the album sleeve urges you to note, created in an entirely sample-free environment, with a spot of backwards guitar where needed – just like in the olden days when tricksy playing and a canny ear was all the eager sonic explorer had to hand. And a primed set of bongos, of course.”

“Mockingbird Wish Me Luck are yet more Swedes going pop! Orchestral pop with a wee nod to Belle and Sebastian in their stylings to be precise (check their record cover design). Their album ‘Days Come and Go’ is chocka with rinky-dink tunes that fill out into sweet-hearted, expansive sing-alongs thanks to some nifty instrumentation. There’s mariachi brass expanding the songs into super wide screen sunset anthems, folkily baroque trills of flute, ice-cream tingles of glockenspiel… Mockingbird Wish Me Luck are an eight-piece band and they sound like it. Centre-piece song ‘Days Come And Go’ packs all in all of the above and chucks in a massed choir of voices for good measure, ensuring that epic sweep is full-on. ‘Take me out tonight, take me somewhere where someone cares’ they sing, lyrically echoing The Smiths on ‘Let’s Watch The Sunrise’, a catch-in-the-throat, banjo-plucking pop lament soothed smooth with brass and percussion. ‘Step In Concrete’ lilts along irresistibly, twinkling amongst Afro guitars, topped with a trumpet solo. ‘New Beginnings’ is made for doing an indie-pop quickstep too.’Summer Again’ winds up with a Camberwick Green music box whirr built from banjos and glockenspiel, toyshop pop. By the time ‘Days Come and Go’ has been and gone, you’ll be fully summer-shined. A pop album for picnic days and warm nights of dancing with all the windows open.”

Taking their name from a Bukowski poetry collection, Mocking Bird, Wish Me Luck aren’t haunted by the misanthropy of the Poet Laureate of Skid Row, instead creating a world of wistful nostalgia that draws obvious comparison to Kings of Convenience and Belle & Sebastian. Everything from the album title and cover to the final note is drenched in a sepia hue, which while affording the album a timeless blush, suggests an over attachment to their influences, starting at Simon and Garfunkle and following a linear path through to today. As a fan of all of the above, it works for me, but some may find it too narrow. The real strength of the album lies in the orchestration, with trombones, flutes and fiddles adding a never-superfluous warmth to an already sincere album of hindsight and regret. Standout track Let’s Watch The Sunrise suggests the potential to usurp KoC as Scandinavia’s finest exponents of indiefolk.

God only knows why, but the Swedes are super proficient at doing pop music. Thank/blame Abba, depending on whether you actually like pop, but here’s another good band straight out of… Ängelholm. They used to be called Sibyl Vane, now they’re named after a Bukowski book. Think The Concretes with strings and a folky/indie edge. Grand songs, delivered well. Belle and Sebastian and Neutral Milk Hotel in bed with Agnetha Föltskog?

Echo and the Bunnymen keyboard player Paul Fleming’s debut is touched equally by
Eno and Neu!, and modern post-rock/sweeping pop flourishes of Sigur Ros and Doves, but the two are never mixed thankfully. Rather, the odd electro-pop numbers seem almost like an afterthought, the DJ Shadow-style beats and post-rock cinematics forming the backbone of this eclectic set.

WHO
Paul Fleming, touring keyboard player for Echo And The Bunnymen, delivers his astonishing debut solo album.

WHAT
An immensely affecting piece of electronic, instrumental musicmaking, ranging from haunting piano pieces to lush post rock symphonies, with an icy post punk aesthetic.

WHY
Hugely original and richly rewarding, this has already become a huge favourite in the shops.

The bongo isn’t the most fashionable of instruments, less nu-rave and more old-smellybeatnik, but that hasn’t deterred Nasser Bouzida, AKA The Bongolian, from using it as the keystone for a rhythmic Odyssey. Begun whilst still a member of Mod-groovers Big Boss Man, The Bongolian is an outlet for Bouzida’s own musical vision, drawing influences from jazz, funk and soul this is music aimed at moving feet and stirring souls. The third album under this pseudonym, ‘Outer Bongolia’ is perhaps the most accomplished yet. Boasting guest appearances from, among others, garage chanteusse Holly Golightly, the album moves from genre to genre but never loses cohesion. Aside from his rhythmic dexterity, Bouzida also takes care of the keyboards on ‘Outer Bongolia’, ,anaging to go from Jimmy Smith to Giorgio Moroder in the space of a few tracks. Opener ‘Talking Synth’ proves you can blend ’60s rhythms with modern instrumentation, while ‘Lucky Seven’ proves that easy listening can be anything but. For an album based around one instrument its range is startling, The Bongolian seemingly willing to meet any demand given by the dancefloor. Forget your preconceptions, this is the REAL incredible bongo band.

Mention the bongo to the average music fan and they will no doubt recoil in horror at memories of goatee clad, socks and sandal wearing beatniks. Well, The Bongolian is on a mission to change all that. Formerly a mem-ber of Mod groovers Big Boss Man, multi instrumentalist Nasser Bouzida has created a unique blend of jazz, funk and soul, but centred entirely on the lowly bongo. Using no samples, The Bongolian has crafted an album of brilliant breakbeats, inspired by the music emanating from Black America in the ’60s and 70s but with a fresh twist. Recorded on The Bongolian’s own analogue 8-track, Bouzida avoids accusations of retro kitsch through the sheer sense of fun and adventure that pervades the record. ‘A Psychedelic Trip’ that takes the listener to the outer reaches of funk and back again, it comes with only one requirement -bring your dancing shoes.

This Swedish, eight-piece orchestral pop band’s first release, at nine songs, is short, sweet and apparently perfectly formed. Flutes, trumpets, and trombones feature alongside bass, percussion and guitar. And along with the somewhat whimsical vocals, this leaves Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck open to comparisons to Belle and Sebastian. It sounds good, and on occasions, very good. ‘Pictures (Too Big To Fit in A Sight)’ is a catchy, poppy break-up tune and perhaps the most memorable on the album. ‘Summer Again’ is a trip back to childhood’s music boxes and fairgrounds, and though a little long, is a wellchosen closing track. However, it’s perhaps all a little too perfect, a little too twee, and a little too thought-out and referential. Yes, this band clearly has impeccable taste in music, and books (being named after a Bukowski collection). But one gets the impression they’re so caught up in their influences that they’ve failed to create anything original – something which I can’t help feeling they’d actually be good at.