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The Wedding Soundtrack - Poland (Another Record)


Tracklist: 1 - Even Ouverture 2 - One Of Us 3 - Cowboyz In The Hood 4 - Bigger
5 - Almost Anything 6 - Damage 7 - Thief 8 - Child 9 - Youhou!!! 10 - Monday Morning
11 - Mosquito 12 - Bois de St Pierre 13 - Get On The Boat
14 - Even 15 - Where Is The Circle

A few days ago, as I was turning one year short of not being twenty anymore and of reaching a definitely uncool and not very rock and roll age, it dawned on me that I had spent all my life listening and being addicted to indie music. I can remember how, as a teenager in the mid-nineties, I would spend hours listening to radio shows and reading papers dealing with bands no one had ever heard at my high school. I particularly remember how engrossed I had become with lo-fi bands, or slack rock, or whatever it was called, and I would spend most of my time browsing record shops looking for the CDs with the ugliest covers – remember Beck’s Mellow Gold sleeve design? - , the silliest song titles – what the hell was Zurich Is Stained supposed to mean? – or the most slapstick, quizzical or undecypherable lyrics.

            The thing with slack-rock or lo-fi outfits is that they made records which were fun and exhilarating to listen – a trait The Wedding Sountrack shares with those bands. It did not really matter whether the musicians played bum notes, the singer sang out of key or the drummer did not mark the beat in time: what really mattered was the thrill and excitement of making music, enjoying doing so, and wanting to share the fun with the listener. In a way, lo-fi musicians made you feel like they were very much like you, and the listener often had the feeling that the musicians were a bunch of good friends, who enjoyed fooling around as much as you did, but were slightly more talented than you were when it boiled down to writing either elating melodies – as was the case with Pavement or early Beck -, heart-breaking melodies as Palace or Cat Power did, or downright weird tunes – after all, Daniel Johnston actually burps on one of his song, while Will Oldham does bark on “Come A Little Girl”.

            However, time has passed. I now enthuse over IDM, electro-rock or post-rock outfits, and great pop bands like Midlake and their refined, precious arrangements. Lo-fi artists have also grown up in a way: Adam Green has gone Frank Sinatra, Pavement had their last record produced by Nigel Goldrich, Will Oldham plays with obsessive soundsmiths Tortoise… That is fine with me, but I must admit that I somehow yearn for these years where being a slacker sounded like the coolest thing on earth.

            That is why Poland, the second outing of French twenty something trio The Wedding Soundtrack comes as a blessing to people who, like me, enjoyed slack-rock so much.

 As a matter of fact, as soon as the first track Even Ouverture, a charming though slightly dispensable piano track, ends and One Of Us kicks in, you are most definitely brought back to those glorious times of slack-rock, what with the oddly grooving and yet slightly out of time drums, lazily strummed guitar and the shrill, quavering voice of lead singer Clement, which disturbingly recalls that of Daniel Johnston throughout the whole record. One Of Us sounds like the Silver Jews jamming with Daniel Johnston, whereas track 3, the aptly named Cowboyz In The Hood, sounds a bit like Pavement taking the piss out of Calexico, meanwhile doing a great job of a song. Later on, The Wedding Soundtrack takes back Blur’s Song No2 right to where it belongs – the realm of American lo-fi – on Youhou!!!, a brilliant track, while Monday Morning is another great fun song, complete with a kazoo solo and catchy pop hooks.