The Grants' Bulgaria Blog.

Music Review: The Pursuit Continues by Giraffe Incognito.

Meet Boris.

There are many things that Boris would like to do in life – such as have a girlfriend, or walk down the street without being yelled at – but unfortunately, Boris is not cool.

Boris has tried numerous approaches to gaining coolness. He bought new jeans and ran over them with the lawnmower (you know, for that authentic ripped look). But that didn’t make Boris cool. He watched every film by Quentin Tarantino (even Jackie Brown!), but that just left him confused. Finally, he moved to Belgium and learnt Flemish so he could return with a cool accent. Alas, he just sounded pretentious!

You see, what Boris never found out is that being cool isn’t about what you look or sound like … it’s about what music you listen to.

What Boris needed was the smooth, 1920s-gangster tones of Giraffe Incognito. It’s obvious, really!

I was trying to think of a good way to frame this review. You know, some sexy way of saying “okay, so this CD is by my brother-in-law, but I promise I’m not reviewing it out of nepotism…”. Oh – I guess I just came right out and said it, didn’t I? Oh well, we’ll see how that goes.

Disclaimers notwithstanding, this album – The Pursuit Continues – is one of those CDs you wish you could find when rifling through a second-hand music shop; something no one else has heard of (yet); something that’s a little off-beat … and most importantly of all, something that sounds great! In that case, you’d go to great lengths to tell everyone you know about it, right? That makes this album eminently blogworthy!

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Musically, this album reminds me of Gotye, maybe the Propellerheads, or even Bentley Rhythm Ace. Giraffe Incognito (aka. William Rainbird) gives us guitars, drums and violin with lashings of amusing samples from scratchy old vinyls that give the album a great cigar-smoke-in-a-1920s-gin-club feel. Most of all I’d say it’s a bass (as in bass guitar) driven album. That’s a good thing; we all know that bass is the second* coolest instrument out there.

Here are some things you might notice on listening to The Pursuit Continues:

Most of the tracks are instrumental. I like this because it reflects the laid-back nature of the album. There’s no rush to keep up with a long series of enigmatic lyrics (tell me: do songwriters aim for lyrics to be vague and obtuse?). It’s about the music – which tends to be playful and interesting.

Where there are lyrics, they’re kinda fun. With tracks like The Bank Robbery, Mr. Gangster Man and Villains, and a song about an escaped serial killer, we’re joining in on an adventure rather than exploring the depths of someone’s psyche.

There’s still a raw quality to the recording. I hesitate to say that, because it sounds like a euphemism for “not very well recorded” – which is thankfully not the case here. Instead, there’s a kind of unselfconscious air to the album, whereas an overpaid producer (in their wisdom) might have said “cut that track, shorten that track, make this track sound more like James Blunt” etc. Nope; not here. Instead of sounding like something else, The Pursuit Continues seems to have a character and personality of its own.

Start and finish. Since I happen to read Giraffe Incognito’s blog, I had a heads-up on this one, but back in August there was an interesting discussion on how important the final (and for that matter, opening) track of an album is. This album is book-ended by solid instrumentals. The opener (The Dutch Camp Lounge) brings things to a great start – it’s laid-back, and it’s got THAT synth note that brings in the drum to give it major cool-factor. The closing track (New Kids In Town – watch out for an upcoming novel of the same name!) does its job in textbook fashion. It’s short, snappy, and a perfect representation of the album.

Nice track names. Like Tortoise With a Turtleneck Sweater. That’s gold. Also Don’t Watch Television Tonight, which becomes more amusing once you hear the sample of Mr. Giraffe impersonating his Dad (with an American accent? – nice).

Other highlights. Villains is very catchy. Beware. Also, my pick for setting a great mood would be Tomorrow’s Past – with a menacing effect on the bass it has a great sense of tension to it. Oh, and the album art – which I’ve only been able to see in digital form since I’m here in BG – is nicely done and sets the tone for the album even before you press play. It’s a parody of Nighthawks by Edward Hopper with the ubiquitous giraffe in place of “that guy at the bar”. Very classy.

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The album is 100% previewable if you go to this website – it’s free. You can even download the whole thing for a donation of your choice (ie. you can pay nothing, if you’re a nasty piece of work ).

Tags: coolness, music, Reviews, Sarcasm/Irony

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 26th, 2009 at 3:07 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.