Feeling Summer

When it gets hard to cool off even indoors, when wearing anything darker outside than off-white brings instant regret, when you hanker more for a G&T than a whiskey neat, it’s time for shutting down the frontal cortex and functioning with your lower brain compartments. Such is the time when simpler music free of excess nuance and almost any melancholy is just the right thing.

Think of sitting poolside, riding in a car to a beach vacation (or nowhere at all), the smell of Coppertone: If any songs start playing in your head, then you know what I’m talking about. Here are a few current nominations for the summer of ‘13 that are not Daft Punk or Kanye West.

– Dave Norman is a local attorney who has been smitten with music since he could hear his first transistor radio turned to WTIX, and is thankful for his ability to share his love with you. You can reach him through email at dave@gumboguide.com

QUADRON are a Danish duo made up of Robin Hannibal and Coco Maja Hastrup Karshøj. Hannibal is also one-half of Rhye, whose recent Woman is the best bedroom soundtrack of this or almost any year. He’s the producer and multi-instrumentalist who makes the musical background (and sometimes foreground) for the phenomenal vocals of Coco. Their 2009 debut garnered them some heady admirers – among them Prince, Pharrell and Jay-Z, the latter having featured her on his The Great Gatsby soundtrack. 

So, some anticipation met their second effort, AVALANCHE, and it’s up for it. Coco is ready for the big-time and Hannibal just about claims the genius mantle. Her range is wide. Her expressiveness runs the entire gamut of emotions. Her funkiness is natural and potent. And Hannibal knows just what each song needs, whether it’s supporting strings or horns, spareness or full orchestration, real drums or electronic beats. Swatches of steel drums, guitars (six-string or steel), plucked or bowed cellos, multi-tracked Coco-supplied background vocals, and a sultry sax – he’s never obtrusive or showy, always logical and spot-on.

The record isn’t a dance party, but it does have its upbeat moments. Opener “LFT” (Looking For Trouble) is a great stage setter, with its Portlandia-theme strolling funk and Coco’s swooping high notes. “Favorite Star” follows with a nasty bass line and Coco’s in-your-ear testifying; that the chorus resolves into a “Rock the Boat” rhythm is as surprising as it is pleasing. The big show-stopping single “Hey Love” follows with its Technicolor wide-screen production, and the hand goes for the plus side of the volume knob (contrary to the mute button used for so many other bombastic “Idol”-inspired headaches). More stately cuts come next: “Crush,” with its unrequited love (the best kind, some have argued) and “Befriend,” the one somber note, which doesn’t sound out of place at all. “Sea Salt” and the title song highlight the later cuts, the former a wistful end-of-day recollection and the latter a beautiful evocation of lost love. (Hey, summer’s got to end, too!)

Adele fans, here’s something to tide you over until 23. Music lovers, here’s your next crush.

DISCLOSURE

‘Settle’

Travel now out of the sun, and into the clubs – those inhabited by the young and nimble, with dancing shoes at the ready. This summer’s dance pop crossover hit, SETTLE, by British brother duo DISCLOSURE is making big waves here in the U.S. after the Atlantic crossing. I’ll quickly admit my deep ignorance of dance music, whether it’s EDM (electronic dance music in any of its various sub-genres) or poppier stuff like Lady Gaga or Pink. But these guys are apparently creating a Grand Unified Theory of dance music; or, more accurately, one hell of a fun record. Guy and Howard Lawrence, 21 and 18, respectively, have unlimited growth potential. 

I’ve given it four spins now, and I’m … starting to get it. House, techno, dubstep, two-step, garage, whatever.  It is a joyful noise. Nearly every song features newly minted vocals, with only a few relying on vocal sampling to carry the day. The first two tracks are of a piece: “Intro” leads into “When a Fire Starts to Burn.” They feature some choice spoken lines from a hip-hop motivational speaker, spliced expertly into a pounding pulsing beat.    

“Latch” follows with its ultra-catchy, almost swinging rhythm and a dramatically good vocal by Sam Smith. A huge hit in England, it should garner some attention here, too. “F for You” (i.e., fool for you), sung by the elder Lawrence, is bedroom material of the knottier kind. “White Noise,” also a U.K. hit, features the rising stars AlunaGeorge contributing some girly and sly crooning. Later on this hour-plus record Jesse Ware gets a turn to add her alternately ethereal and earthy vocals on “Confess to Me.” Hannah Reid (of London Grammar) closes the record in relatively quiet (but still pulsating) fashion on “Help Me Lose My My Mind.”

The clubbier cuts are few, but they are impressive in their deep conviction to the form. Impossibly deep bass slides and insinuates itself behind computer-altered human noise.

Repetition and building layer upon layer of organic and synthetic sounds is the brothers’ stock in trade. It’s not all that innovative, just done so winningly. Daft Punk may have thrown the biggest curveball of the summer by forsaking the tenets of EDM (which it helped popularize) for the funkier roots of disco, but Disclosure have stepped into that void and dropped a big ol’ glitter bomb.

THE LEE THOMPSON SKA ORCHESTRA

‘The Benevolence of Sister Mary Ignatius’

And there’s no saner or more joyous example of the form than THE LEE THOMPSON SKA ORCHESTRA on its debut, THE BENEVOLENCE OF SISTER MARY IGNATIUS.  Thompson is a horn player in the British ska-rock group Madness, and he enlists the help of some of his bandmates and a few Jamaicans on this collection of classic covers and oddities. Cover art of the year locked down (take a look), the album gets its title from the nun who taught some of ska’s giants in Kingston. Production is in glorious mid-fi, warm and woozy as the music.

Don’t be concerned that the Madness connection means the frenetic pacing of that sometimes-annoying ensemble. No, these guys are staying true to the source, which means taking things at differing paces, and all deliciously in the pocket. Burbling organ, stabbing piano, staccato horns, lithe-wristed guitar and rough-and-ready vocals all equate to the sound of grounded euphoria.

60s Jamaican music was preoccupied with secret agents and noir-influenced gangsterism,  so we get “Guns Fever,” “Napoleon Solo,” “Mission Impossible,” and “Bangarang,” the latter alone worth a cabinet full of Advil and happy pills.  Left field entries “Midnight Rider” (yes, the Allman Brothers), “Hey Josephine” (the one time they break out of island rhythm to indulge in an R&B swing, understandably) and “Soul Serenade” delight as they become inevitable upon repeat listens. 

If this gets your juices flowing, catch the New Orleans Jamaican devotees 007 when they make one of their very infrequent appearances – you’ll leave in an elevated state.

Last-minute entries for summer jams: Divine Fits’ digital single, “Chained to Love”/”Ain’t That the Way” – hard-hitting 80’s-inspired road songs – and  Smith Westerns’ Soft Will – catchy, hook-filled pop for young lovers of all ages. 

Coco Maja Hastrup Karshøj and Robin Hannibal, of Quadron, are pictured. The Danish duo’s latest album, Avalanche, is one of the upbeat records Gumbo music critic Dave Norman examines this month.

COURTESY PHOTO