HOME

REVIEWS

- RSS Feed

SoundsXP Presents

tba

On Our iPod

Weird Dreams - Choreography (album)

Crocodiles - Sunday (Psychic Conversation #9) 7”

The Hairs - I’ve Been Working Out 7”

King Creosote and Jon Hopkins - Third Swan single

Cate Le Bon - Cyrk (album)

Tashaki Miyaki - sings the Everly Brothers 7”

Antony Harding - The Birds Sing Goodnight To You And Me (album)

Veronica Falls - My Heart Beats 7”

Latest Forum Posts

Album Review

Flare Acoustic Arts League
Big Top/ Encore EP2 Affairs of the Heart

Article written by Ged M - Dec 9, 2011

Flare Acoustic Arts League: Big Top/ Encore EP2

If you like Stephin Merritt and Morrissey along with Cole Porter, you’re likely to love Flare Acoustic Arts League. LD Beghtol, who has been a Magnetic Field as well as fronting Flare, writes the most literate, melodic songs that mix contemporary pop and classic songsmithery. This is what you might expect from someone who told Comes With A Smile in 2002: “my idea of a hot date would be William Morris in about 1870”. You could cut yourself on the sharpness of his tongue but then soothe the pain with the melodic twists that his songs also deliver. On the catchy unlove song ‘Scenario’, against a background of toy piano and mariachi horns, he spits: “I tossed your fucking smartphone off the Verrazano Bridge/ and it’s only fair to warn you, don’t look inside that fridge”. ‘Last Clown Standing’ opens the album with high drama and a gushing melody, while ‘Hideous Ethnic Stereotype’ is a short and snappy 2-minute pop song about family problems and an “Irish curse”. In line with his Magnetic Fields past, there are ensemble pieces, notably the duet on ‘Does This Sound Appealing’ with Dana Kletter, and there’s a neat cover of the Psychedelic Furs’ ‘Yes I Do (Merry Go Round)’, titivated by glockenspiel and strings.

Pop and intelligence are uneasy bedfellows; here, while the songs might occasionally become a little too complex when you want them just to stick a killer chorus to you, the record manages to wear its learning well and the combination of infectious melodies and darkly humorous lyrics is a winning one.

Links:
http://affairsoftheheart.de/artists.html#faal
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flare-Acoustic-Arts-League/103102356397308