Airport Girl - Slow Light
January 28th 2007 11:41
Airport Girl – Slow Light (Fortuna POP!)
Sometimes it's nice to sit down, isn't it? Who says you have to keep moving, keep pushing forwards, incessantly shamble your way to the front? Not Airport Girl. Thing is, they might tell you that sitting down is pretty ace, but the fact remains that they've actually done the dirty and managed to keep moving, keep pushing forwards and shamble their way to the front. The sweet, winsome Americana of 'Slow Light' is, on the surface, a step back from the jolly jangles of 2002's 'Honey, I'm An Artist', but it's actually a gigantic leap in a weird direction. Clearly indebted to label-mates The Butterflies of Love and everyone's favourite uneasy balding men Silver Jews, Airport Girl have found a dynamic that suits. While it might not be all that thrilling or incendiary or likely to cause a knickers-avalanche at their shows, it certainly does place them in a lovely sort of buffer area. A bit like a nature reserve for the terminally content.
The sweetly sobbing and bobbing circulatory construction of 'Show Me The Way' seems borne of delicate adding of auxiliary parts. It's like the scene in the small-town-band-comes-good-and-learns-something movie where one jaded songwriter jangles out something unremarkable, then is joined one by one by the remainder of his band until a mini-pop symphony is composed. The inherent sadness imbued throughout 'Slow Light' (this is pretty much a country record, remember) is crushing: 'How Long Can This Go On' is indicative of a very quiet heartbreak, with singer Rob Price simply intoning that "there's a problem, there's a problem". We aren't given a great deal of insight as to the depth of this problem, but we know for damn sure that it's sad enough to warrant some wispy harmonica playing. That's country sadness, folks, in its purest form.
With closing dream-piece 'Bullfighting', however, Airport Girl find their apotheosis. Gently tweaked chords swimming underneath melodica and, eventually, some MBV guitars that are as welcome as they are unexpected. This gentle air of melancholy subversion is where 'Slow Light' excels like its peers, but with a subtly stained canvas that tells us that not all is entirely correct. The sadness is yet to heal, perhaps. With that in mind, there's little to stop 'Slow Light' being recommended alongside The Butterflies of Love's 'Famous Problems' as winter heartbreak record of the year. But don't let that season be the only one you play it in.
'Slow Light comes out on the 5th of Feb. Get it HERE or HERE.
Sometimes it's nice to sit down, isn't it? Who says you have to keep moving, keep pushing forwards, incessantly shamble your way to the front? Not Airport Girl. Thing is, they might tell you that sitting down is pretty ace, but the fact remains that they've actually done the dirty and managed to keep moving, keep pushing forwards and shamble their way to the front. The sweet, winsome Americana of 'Slow Light' is, on the surface, a step back from the jolly jangles of 2002's 'Honey, I'm An Artist', but it's actually a gigantic leap in a weird direction. Clearly indebted to label-mates The Butterflies of Love and everyone's favourite uneasy balding men Silver Jews, Airport Girl have found a dynamic that suits. While it might not be all that thrilling or incendiary or likely to cause a knickers-avalanche at their shows, it certainly does place them in a lovely sort of buffer area. A bit like a nature reserve for the terminally content.
The sweetly sobbing and bobbing circulatory construction of 'Show Me The Way' seems borne of delicate adding of auxiliary parts. It's like the scene in the small-town-band-comes-good-and-learns-something movie where one jaded songwriter jangles out something unremarkable, then is joined one by one by the remainder of his band until a mini-pop symphony is composed. The inherent sadness imbued throughout 'Slow Light' (this is pretty much a country record, remember) is crushing: 'How Long Can This Go On' is indicative of a very quiet heartbreak, with singer Rob Price simply intoning that "there's a problem, there's a problem". We aren't given a great deal of insight as to the depth of this problem, but we know for damn sure that it's sad enough to warrant some wispy harmonica playing. That's country sadness, folks, in its purest form.
With closing dream-piece 'Bullfighting', however, Airport Girl find their apotheosis. Gently tweaked chords swimming underneath melodica and, eventually, some MBV guitars that are as welcome as they are unexpected. This gentle air of melancholy subversion is where 'Slow Light' excels like its peers, but with a subtly stained canvas that tells us that not all is entirely correct. The sadness is yet to heal, perhaps. With that in mind, there's little to stop 'Slow Light' being recommended alongside The Butterflies of Love's 'Famous Problems' as winter heartbreak record of the year. But don't let that season be the only one you play it in.
'Slow Light comes out on the 5th of Feb. Get it HERE or HERE.
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