Thorn and Watt got me thinking. In '84 another jazzy pop piece showed up and made the rounds of hipsters. Carmel's debut was bombastic, kind of messy and doesn't hold up as well as Everything But the Girl. Carmel sings (hollers?) like Peggy Lee on speed (which isn't as bad as it sounds, to be honest) and the band sits in some tight grooves. The swinging numbers would carry the torch til the Big Band revival in the '90s, and the trancey cuts would inform the acid jazz that followed.While it doesn't sound dated, it does come across as unfocused and as such it can be a love it or hate it proposition. As an artifact of the time however, it's a joyful little record and has its memorable moments. Long out of print, it deserves some space on the web.
Check out More, More, More, the title track, Stormy Weather, and the marvelously moody cover of Tracks of My Tears (Portishead's debut owes a lot to this track).
Note: The image is the LP cover. The CD had a different (read: crappier) cover altogether.
No comments:
Post a Comment