Reviews - Week 26

Acid House Kings

Mondays are like Tuesdays and Tuesdays are like Wednesdays - Cd Lp

Labrador

Let me tell you: Acid House Kings are a band with a vision. No, seriously: they formed in 1991 when they were still teenagers; by 1992 they had come up with a ten-year plan. Now, that's quite impressive in itself but let me tell you that they followed it, too.

The plan was to release three albums in ten years, each one exactly five years after the one before it. So after 1992's "Pop, look & listen" there came "Advantage of Acid House Kings" - now, that's quite impressive in itself but let me tell you, they didn't split up after it. They didn't even change their minds. Instead, in 2001, they build their own studio, which would allow them to achieve the perfectly sophisticated pop production they dreamed of, which, you know, is quite impressive in itself but let me tell you... I think they succeeded in that, too.

They think "Mondays are like Tuesdays and Tuesdays are like Wednesdays" is 'a bit like the Smiths, but for summer days instead of lonely autumn evenings you spent locked up in your room'. This is strangely accurate and funny at the same time: they don't sound like the Smiths at all (who does, anyway) - they do sound like Club 8 and Starlet and the Cardigans but not like Belle and Sebastian, except, well, except if we're talking very generally - but the feeling is there. And it is, I think, the feeling of being there. The feeling of loving life so much you make plans & live up to them; so much you write songs about it & build a studio to record them.

And what songs they are: airy and warm, sweet and cool, slightly folky and classy, as full of contradictory feelings and moods as they are of catchy melodies and cute harmonies and handclaps and perfectly played pop instruments and all the charming things that make pop kids smile - and have I told you the production is perfect? I think I have - and I just love the moment where they just burst into handclaps and cheers at the end of a song.

I've come to think of "Mondays are like Tuesdays and Tuesdays are like Wednesdays" as 'a record about the days of the week', not only for all the obvious reasons (though it does also include a song called Sunday morning) but it feels like any given week does (at least any give week of my life at the moment): bittersweet. As they put it "there's a certain kind of sadness, there's a certain kind of joy in everything you're doing"; that exactly what this record is like. But it's more sweet than bitter, more happy than sad; and above all, it is oh-so-very-charming. They go on to add "say yes if you love me, no if you don't care, please if you're asking me to not be there" and I think I know what I'll say.

Airliner

The last days of August - Cd Lp

Labrador

Let's get one thing straight: "The last days of August" is an end of an affair record - or at least that's what it seems to be to me. Oh - and it is perfect at that.

Do you remember the studio from the previous review? Well that is where Kristian Rosengren of Aerospace (you probably don't know who Aerospace are, but it's okay because it doesn't affect your understanding of this review very much, and I'm bound to tell you about them soon anyway) went to record this album. He called himself 'Airliner' for reasons that still appear obscure to the rest of humanity, but that doesn't matter much, either.

"I stand and watch her helplessly, as I'm heading for a fall and she's heading for the station" he half-whispers, half-sings. "To catch a bus to a new adventure, a new start somewhere else."

This is a record about love and longing. It is about things that went wrong and things that slipped through your fingertips. It is about things that will never come back, and how trying to bring them back only makes everything feel wrong. And about how this makes the world a bit of a worse place.

"What can I do to make things better, make things bright and beautiful? Happiness is an option, but what is true? What is forever? What is right and what is wrong? I wish I knew. And if I knew, I'd pass it on to you. Noboby but you."

But in a way it is also about learning to let go and about how love is beautiful even when it's gone, and maybe that is what makes it so special. It is a sad record - actually, sadness and nostalgia colour every single song on it - but in no way is it desperate. It is too beautiful for that: its are melodies too heart-warming, its whispered lyrics too sweet and tender, too full of love and poetic images, its songs too well-crafted. You can't love your songs so much and dislike life very much, or so I'd like to think, at least. Oh, and have I mentioned the production is perfect again?

If it had to remind me of something, it would be the Foxgloves, and the Montgolfier Brothers and J J Johanson - classy, guitar-orientated, quiet records to be played by sad, handsome boys on gloomy evenings while the ceiling changes colours as the sunlight fades, if you know what I mean. Only this one is a little warmer, less acoustic and more indiepop (which can only be a good thing) and it is also suitable for young, dreamy girls that want to play an elegy to the summer the last days of August.

Dimitra Daisy