Adding Dream Topping To Your Instant Whip

Starring

Another Body Found, Charif Megarbane, Echolalia, Jake Xerxes Fussell. The Loft, Momo, Pierre Bastien and Louis Laurain

The Front Runners

Hawalat : Charif Megarbane

Well, this was a sunshine burst of happiness from start to finish. If you’re down in the dumps, this should be prescribed listening from your doctor to put you back on track.

Charif - I don’t think he’d want the formality of addressing him by his surname - describes his music as ‘Lebrary’ music. That’s library music from Lebanon. Send me to this library because it’s brimful of positive feelings and emotions. It’s music that assumes the good intent of the listener, that they won’t dismiss it out of hand because it sounds superficially lightweight and disposable. You will not want to dispose of this album lightly.

It’s surprising in all the best ways. ‘Hanadi’ is party music, a gift for Radio 6’s Craig Charles. It can be abruptly playful, as in ‘Al Bahriye’, in its sudden changes of direction and pace. There’s a light headed psychedelia with a touch of innocent 60s flavouring in ‘Miramar’ that’s irrepressible. It’s as if Pearl and Dean wrote songs for the Mike Sammes Singers. ‘Dreams of the Insomniac’ has a similar effect. At times you’ll think this is absolutely cuckoo - literally so at the end of ‘The Invisible Cut’. There’s a friendl;y jazz feel to ‘What Happened Next’. This is world music that taps into the DNA of good pop, wherever you are.

This is feel good music from start to finish. At times euphoric and impossible to shake off, it’s never cheesy just happy. It’s the music behind a scene setting montage in a screwball romcom. ‘East Of What’ gives you that giddy happy feeling of finding your soulmate when you’d given up all hope of doing so. It’s as infectious as a yawn that miraculously puts a bounce in your step. It’s almost irrelevant that it’s skilfully played and beautifully produced.

In a just world, Charif Meharbane should be blaring out of every radio station in the land. It’s the soundtrack to your best Summer.

Taster Track : Dreams of the Insomniac

When I’m Called : Jake Xerxes Fussell

Jake Xerxes Fussell plays a mix of traditional folk and newer songs that have a country feel. That’s a bald summary of this album which can’t capture its magical effect.

Forgive me if this review sounds a little shovked, but I was taken aback by its powerful effect. I’m by no means a folkie but I was captivated, at times almost enchanted by these songs. They are reverential, beautifully and respectfully played. Take ‘Who Killed Poor Robin’. It’s transformed from a near nursery rhyme into a song of sorrowful accusation with a relentless and insistent rhythm.

A song such as ‘Cuckoo’ is a work of conservation and preservation but one that also values the human voice and experiences. It sounds simple but profound all at once. ‘Leaving Here, Don’t Know Where I’m Going’ is timeless, literally so. You’re immersed in it so completely that you lose track of time, even as the world continues to spin around you. At times you barely want to breathe in case you break the songs’ spell. They have a secular but hymnlike quality that I’ve only experienced before from some of Bill Fay’s songs.

His voice is worn but kind. The strings that adorn some of the songs prevent them sounding too traditional if that would be off putting to you. The newer songs have a more country feel to them, but a country feel that is rooted in real life not sentimentality.

Above all these are songs that offer you a place of refuge and shelter from the world. It’s a beautiful and life changing album.

Taster Track : Cuckoo

Everything Changes, Everything Stays The Same : The Loft

The Loft release their all new debut, just 41 years after they split. I’ll give you a moment to take that in.

Back in 1984, The Loft had built a good reputation in indie and critical circles but, like many young bands, they were feeling the strain. It all went wrong midway through a song they were playing as support for The Colour Field and they split up on stage there and then. It sounds like the sort of rock and roll tale that deserved an encore but, for obvious reasons, that wasn’t going to happen. They’d released a handful of well received songs and live sessions but no full album.

Until, that is, this year.

On ‘Everything Changes…’ they don’t sound like a band with a point to prove. This album is full of all new songs. It’s true to their original jangling spirit but has a maturity that makes it much more than just an attempt to return to past glories.

The album opens with ‘Feel Good Now’. It’s jauntier than you might expect given their circumstances, and you can relax. It takes 40 years off you right away. ‘Storytime’ creeps confidently with the air of a band that is giving you exactly what you want . They’re not wrong.

There are so many good riffs here that are reliant, not on power, but on memorability for their impact. ‘Killer’ is the effortless sound of a band that has gone from strength to strength. Every band member, word, note and beat is perfectly in place. It builds to a wonderful climax in ‘This Machine’ - a perfect set closer.

‘Everything Changes….’ does what any great comeback album should do. It sends you scurrying back to their earlier songs, while rejoicing that they’ve returned in an improved and undimmed version.

Taster Track : This Machine

The Chasing Pack

Scooterboys From The Pool : Another Body Found

If you feel that dark electro from the French Underground scene is what your life is lacking at this time, then you’re in for a treat. If, like me, you’re more concerned with celebrating the arrival of Spring and the approach of Summer you may feel it misses the mark.

It occurs to me that we’re no longer as impressed by songs that show off. We need a little more than that. Don’t get me wrong. Another Body Found conjures some strong effects  out of their broken and jerky rhythms, continually wrong footing tunes and unfriendly, evil mad scientist vocals.

This is music for dark environments that withers in the light. It’s music for club low lifes in a stupor in a club where, from the corner of your eye, you can see red eyed rats scurrying into a corner. It lacks charm, sounding like a cabaret for the broken and the damned.

You can hear its origins in early Kraftwerk although it’s travelled a fair distance since then. It’s less clean and pristine, and squelchier. Kraftwerk know that there has to be a catchiness, a hummability even, to keep the music from sounding dead and inhuman. Somewhere along the way, Another Body Found have slipped away from that.

It’s not unrelentingly gloomy, and it’s by no means a disaster. ‘Lost In The Northern Lights’ is catchily clipped and abrupt. ‘Another Body Found’ is a corrupted version of Depeche Mode at their darkest, but one that hasn’t completely let go of their gift for melody. And there’s a nice surprise at the end that sounds as if it comes from a different album. ‘Scooterboys From The Pool’ is a pretty good stab at sampling Bronskibeat’s ‘Small Town Boy’. It’s the highlight of the album, even if it still finds space for some panicky vocals.

They’ve done a good job delivering their vision of how music should sound. It won’t have you feeling uplifted, emotional, excited or happy. And right now it’s not the soundtrack to how I want to feel.

Taster Track : Scooterboys From The Pool

Echolalia : Echolalia

Echolalia’s collection of Americana influenced pop is an enjoyable delight - born of friendship, and different without  being inaccessible.

They’re a band of Nashville friends who relocated to the Norfolk coast to make this album. That friendship comes out in every song, in a sense that different ideas are accepted and worked on, with a desire to make them as good as they can be. In some cases, such as ‘The Fox and the Grapes’ it feels like an opportunity to give voice to songs that may have become individual passion projects. 

If that means that the album occasionally feels like a compilation, it’s the warmth of friendly collaboration that unifies them. You can even forgive the potential mis-step of the Sham ‘69 folk of ‘In The Pub’. It’s just the lads having a laugh and a joke while letting their hair down.

It’s not just the whistling on the delightful ‘Little Bird’ that calls to mind the work of Andrew Bird. It’s also in the vocals of ‘Blood Moon’ and elsewhere and in the mix of songs that aren’t quite commercial but are always accessible. And it’s in the sudden appearances of simple melodies to die for.

For every high quality traditional pop song such as the classic in waiting ‘Dreams of You’ or the companionable confessional of ‘Never Cry’ there’s the Wickerman folk of ‘Twisted Hemlock or the psychedelic mix of ‘Old Energy’ bringing the sound of a dream that’s playing out behind twitching eyelids without quite becoming a nightmare.

There are quiet, sometimes quirky highlights throughout the album. ‘For You Love’ is a song that builds and hangs together beautifully, starting tentatively and growing into its quiet swagger. The lazy, ambient coastal wandering of ‘Pterri’, complete with acoustic bass and slide guitar is as welcome as it is unexpected. It sounds as if it was recorded on a cliff top as the Autumn sun sets over the sea. These are songs that each have their own feel and atmosphere, a collective response to what they find around them 

With friends like these, good things can only follow

Taster Track : Dreams Of You

Gira : Momo

This mix of Brazilian and jazz vibes is a pairing that shouldn’t work, but it does. This is an album that will have you heedlessly tapping your feet even as your brain seeks to understand what’s going on.

Many of these tracks are all about the swing. They shimmy and sashay their way from your ears down to your toes, inviting your participation in the music. This is music that needs and welcomes people around you.

The thing is, it’s much slower than you might expect as if intended for the older people who used to set the scene. They’ve passed the baton to a younger generation but still make music that keeps the original spirit alive. 

At its best, it’s the sight of a fierce elderly relative surprising everyone with the grace of their moves at a wedding party before breaking into a warm smile that says “I’ve still got it!”. The downside is that it sometimes sounds like your jazz teacher grinding out rhythms he’s known for years (‘My Mind’). The music grinds away too on ‘Summer Interlude’ changing something that you might have expected to be light on its feet into the sound of an eternal, never ending day when you might just prefer to put your feet up and call it a night. These are isolated moments though, and even when I wasn’t sure about it, my feet continued to tap.

Mainly, the music carries the day. It’s spontaneous as if it sets out not knowing where it’s headed, but is proceeding steadily with a determination to arrive there in the end.

‘Para’ starts us off, slowly swinging into a cocktail of Brazilian flavoured jazz, dub and electronic magic. This sounds different, and you’ll pay attention. Even its cello, usually a mournful instrument, can’t derail the carefully deliberate desire to sway and swing. ‘Rio’, with its seductive lounge rhythms, captures the soul of the music. You can hear the smiles in the air as ‘Passo de Avrarandar’ swerves and mutates as it goes. ‘Gira’ brings the album to an end  with an attractive bounce.

This is a different sounding take on jazz that could easily become addictive. 

Taster Track : Passo de Avarandar

C(or)N(e)T : Pierre Bastien and Louis Laurain

Er….. Um…… Help!

Pierre Bastien is a French musician, composer, and experimental musical instrument builder. Louis Laurain is a trumpet player, living in South of France. His work lies at the borders of experimental music, electro-acoustics, Jazz, traditional music, visual and performative arts. He develops a totally unique way of playing and thinking about music. Together they have the same effect as adding Coca Cola (or Pepsi) to baking powder and it’s unexpectedly, explosively new.

The origins of this album may be in experimental jazz, but that’s just a starting point for departing from music. Blaring jazz trumpet foghorns, the sound of chattering Minions, lumbering rhythms, whistles, the nightmare caws of poisoned birds. There are times when this album sounds completely insane.

Nothing here is straightforward. Even the album title looks and types as a computer password. The song titles are all tortured puns and variations on the letters, C, N  and T. It’s as experimental as music comes, the sound of a mutant industrial dockland set in marsh land. 

Regardless of how you feel about the music, this is very clever, probably witty and definitely baffling. 7/10 times I’d turn this off. 2/10 times I’d keep it playing just to annoy people. But the remaining time I’d be impressed to the extent of being dumbstruck. 

I’ve learned, quite recently, that if you don’t understand the music and the skill involved in bringing it to the world, you can at least reflect on how it causes you to feel. This satisfies my brain, but not my heart, soul or feet. In the end, that’s not really enough. 

Of course, this could be an artistic con, a case of Emperor’s new clothes masquerading as something special. However, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and call it an all guns blazing onslaught on conventions and expectations of what music can do.

Taster Track : Seen In T***

As ever this week's Taster Track playlists can be accessed at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42qDXrw3nLMlCSg45kCnRy?si=4499207642034207 or via the Spotify link on the Home Page.

The link to the Youtube playlist is https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV-OogHy7EjHZr5_M3m0Zn5LEu_F3fMm&si=OhQF-ZPaBjUn4VMT