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Outside of Damon Albarn’s pillaging of ‘Mali Music’ for his long-forgotten turn towards the smug ghastliness which encompasses so much of World Music for Westerners, African rhythms have had a hard time in breaking into indie music as contemporarily know it. This year however such things appear to be in vogue, judging by Vampire Weekend’s rapid rise to ascendancy which has brought Graceland-esque beats and timpani-aping percussion right into the mainstream radar. Ruby Suns are another band who are seemingly looking to Africa for textured inspiration, and tribal chants and pounding jungle rhythms play a key role on this, their second album.
Whilst the tribal element is a key fascination, these California based Kiwis are also keen to soak up the sounds of their new homeland as the backbone of this record is essentially made up of West coast American pop music. There are many nods to the Beach Boys use of psychedelic exploration within simple pop narratives and, combined with the more exotic approaches mentioned above, this makes for a very satisfying and often beautiful record. This is an album that is as warm as the Serengeti sun but one that is also challenging and intriguing, being that it is full of interesting melodic twists and diverse uses of song structure and instrumentation.
The key thing here is that while all of this could’ve resulted in one stodgy mess, one must reward the talent of a band who can make an album this challenging but also accessible and gratifying. Whilst the Animal Collective comparisons are a tad inevitable, Ruby Suns stake their own claim for greatness by remembering to think of the listeners’ pleasure instead of purely satisfying their own need to experiment (which AC are undoubtedly guilty of). This is a mature and endearing album which, at a sensible 41 minutes, never outstays its welcome and should have Ruby Suns attaining their own gem status when their California sunshine finally breaks through the concrete clouds over here this summer.
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