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album // Let Me Introduce My Friends
Part of me thinks that there's no higher
compliment for an album of quirky pop music than my fussy, fickle
and picky five year old daughter proclaiming that she likes it.
I dug this album out of my loft recently, having almost forgotten
that I even bought it. Let Me Introduce My Friends by expansive
Swedish band I'm From Barcelona was released on
in September 2006 on Mute's faltering InterPop
imprint and was supported by a single, 'We're From Barcelona'. Let
Me Introduce My Friends highlights one of the frustrating things
that is hopefully now in the past from Mute's EMI years, since the
album and four supporting singles were already available on iTunes
in the UK from February that year via EMI Sweden, leaving you wondering
whether it was really ever Mute's own idea to release this themselves.
Mute UK's shiny new website doesn't list them as one of their artists,
which is either oversight or an indication of how this album release
came about.
I'm from Barcelona were formed around beardy singer
/ producer / guitarist / musical polymath Emanuel Lundgren
from Jönköping and named after Manuel from Fawlty
Towers. I lose count, but I think the band consisted of a gargantuan
25 members at the time of this debut album, and I believe they've
gone as high as 29 members since.
I like to think that I would have bought this anyway,
even without the Mute connection; Mrs S had heard the 'We're From
Barcelona' single on 6 Music and bought it from iTunes, and I thought
it was just a brilliant, oddball pop track. The tinkly melodies
and simple lyrics, plus some nifty harmonising by the assorted band
members managed to get lodged in my head and it remains a welcome
guest there to this day.
My eldest daughter warming to the album probably
came from the same place, and it's probably the same reason that
she likes things like the soundtrack to the film Juno.
On the Juno soundtrack there's a song by Kimya Dawson called
'Tire Swing' which fetishises that most simplistic form of improvised
playground entertainment; here, I'm From Barcelona do the same with
'Treehouse', but add a dimension of blissful, first-flushes-of-love
euphoria; Daughter#1 and I found ourselves spontaneously breaking
into the innocent chorus of 'I have built a treehouse / Nobody
can see us / Cos it's a you and me house' at random points
during the day.
Elsewhere there's the joyous opener 'Oversleeping'
which bemoans an ineffective alarm clock, and 'Collection Of Stamps'
which concerns itself with stamp collecting. Never the coolest thing
to admit to having as your hobby, but such is the vaguely childish
and off-kilter subject matter on display on Let Me Introduce
My Friends. Both are great, cheerful pop songs from the Spector
school of dramatic music, just with quirky lyrics. Incidentally,
a debate in my office last week concluded that there's very little
to distinguish between record collecting and stamp collecting, something
that my music-loving colleagues and I fiercely - and nerdily - contested.
Sonically, for some reason I always want to think
of that awful Oasis-covering lounge act The Mike Flowers Pops, but
while there's a distinct whiff of pop cheese about these songs,
ultimately they're generally just lighthearted tracks with simple
ideas rather than naff ideas full stop. There are, literally, bells
and whistles, big drums, kazoos, accordions horns a plenty and pretty
much any instrument you can think of on this LP. I think only the
most lumpen, lead-hearted, po-faced listener would fail to be moved
by the gentle love song that is the blissful Beach Boys-meets-Weezer
'Rec & Play', which eulogises mixtapes and receiving mixes from
a loved one; or 'Chicken Pox' which laments the inability to catch
the disease twice - maybe it's a metaphor, or maybe these guys see
song-worthy beauty in the strangest places. These songs work best
when all the various layers, instruments and harmonies mesh together
into a huge Spector-esque deluge of sound; not enough bands take
that Wall Of Sound idea forward these days, but I'm From Barcelona
do, often building from small foundations into absolutely massive,
densely-packed songs with generally big choruses. The cute 'Jenny'
is a good example.
Things do occasionally tail off a little in the
second half, and I'm not a fan at all of the funereal, bed-wetting
tale of the 'official' closing track 'The Saddest Lullaby', with
crooned vocals from Mathias Alrikson (stick around
long enough for the hidden, shouty, lo-fi bonus track 'End' and
you won't be disappointed); meanwhile, the twin-speed 'Ola Kala'
is somewhat testing for my patience, but generally these are small
hiccups in what is otherwise a brilliant and joyous pop album.
For a band who have probably the largest number
of members I've ever come across, I'm From Barcelona are surprisingly
less prolific than you'd expect; they must need to shift a lot of
tickets to gigs or sell a load of albums to ensure everyone in this
collective gets paid. Following Let Me Introduce My Friends,
they released another album (2008's Who Killed Harry Houdini?)
on EMI; that was followed in by a compilation called 27 Songs
From Barcelona, a highly-limited, 200-copies-only LP of songs
by each member of the band; in 2011 Mute USA released
I'm From Barcelona's new album, Forever Today.
cd:
1. Oversleeping
2. Collection Of Stamps
3. We're From Barcelona
4. Treehouse
5. Jenny
6. Ola Kala
7. Chicken Pox
8. Rec & Play
9. This Boy (featuring Loney, Dear)
10. Barcelona Loves You
11. The Saddest Melody (featuting Mathias Alrikson)
12. End (hidden bonus track)
Note: the Swedish LP version includes an extra
track, 'The Painter'.
single // We're From Barcelona
'We're From Barcelona' by I'm From Barcelona
received a physical 7" release on Mute's InterPop
imprint in September 2006. The track had been available on iTunes
earlier in the year, first as part of the EMI Sweden Don't Give
Up On Your Dreams, Buddy! EP, and then again as a single track
download. The sleeve photo captures all 25 of the members of the
band, like some sort of yearbook photo; the back of the 7"
helpfully lists out who all the members are, but doesn't go so far
as to tell you what they all actually do in the band.
Kitsch sleeve aside, 'We're From Barcelona' is a
highly original pop track. Taking its cues from grand, Phil Spector
or Van Dyke Parkes-style productions, the song is multi-layered
to the point where it is often difficult to identify individual
instruments, something that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys did
to much more commercially successful effect on Pet Sounds.
'We're From Barcelona' is a happy, upbeat and inoffensive track
with pretty melodies and a chorus that only the most depressed individual
would fail to be moved by. Lots of tinkly sounds add to the overall
sincere vibe.
B-side 'Glasses' also appeared on iTunes as part
of EMI Sweden's digitial release of 'Collection Of Stamps'. Beginning
with the sound of cicadas, the track evolves into a gentle, rousing
folk ballad about not wanting to wear spectacles. Quite how Emanuel
Lundgren manages to be able to write songs about the most
mundane feelings and objects is well beyond me, but the delicate
'Glasses' - all simple percussion, big sweeping vocal harmonies
and relaxed, bluesy guitars - is another example of a very individual
talent.
7":
A. We're From Barcelona
B. Glasses
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