Wednesday 3 September 2008

Beyond the Wizard Sleeve - ARK1 (2008)




This is Rough Trade's album of the month and as an illustrious member of the album club, I received it not knowing anything about it. But that's the beauty of Rough Trade's album club, finding beauty and perfection in the obscurest of things.

But this isn't an advert for Rough Trade (well, they don't need one- they rule everything musical in this country: *FACT*). This is about Beyond the Wizard Sleeve, the brainchild of uber DJ of coolness and big 80s production, Erol Akan, and The Grid's Richard Norris. It's an interesting psychedelic trip through breakbeats psyche-folk and 60's swirly flower patterns man. Moments of strange Hebrew-esque poetry hovers over funky sitars and beats that threaten to explode but remain on the head-nodding side of steady. The disco beats and the weird tripped out sampled vocals are all a happy marriage on what is a very decent LP, not too long and not too dancey. When it threatens to get too krauty or disco-ey, they have the sense to pull things back and keep it subtle and funky rather than loud and repetitive. A great surprise to have in my postbox! Three and a half stars. Moi bien...

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