Sock Free Hideaway

BEATS OF LOVE

39. Hernani by Top Sound

ALBIN LINDSTROM aka Eden Rock, a Stockholm DJ, is responsible for some of the only mixes to give AOR a good name. They're brilliant. He kindly shared this beautiful CD, in the dream-pop tradition, that only a fool wouldn't purchase. It's brilliant too. 

The idea of fetishizing CDs the way we fetishize vinyl is odd, but becoming much more common. All I'll say is that in this instance ordering the CD direct from Sweden was cheaper. My ears are hard-wired to hearing vinyl so CDs sound a little biting in their crispness. I have to suffer for your art, I guess. 

Thankfully, Top Sound makes it easier by creating a CD that plays well from start to finish. And then better still on repeat plays. How they've managed to escape me for so long is another of life's little mysteries. 

Katarina Andersson's voice is simply perfect for this song. A song that first surfaced digitally in 2016 but is thankfully included on this cd. It's a little clearer and more sophisticated than the more muffled voices characteristic of the genre. Einar Ekström's vibraphonette really gives it a more catchy feeling and evokes a time of innocence in pop when Saint Etienne was plotting world domination. It's also the perfect length for a classic pop song.

By the time Kylie's producers finally achieved world domination, with a sound mutated from synth pop, it became too brittle and cold to truly satisfy anybody other than Paul Morley. Thankfully, these woozy, throbbing synths and piano lines add layers of warmth that invite a nostalgic lament for the loss of innocence and I forget all about the dross that's currently out there.

Understanding that music is always at its best as a pure and simple form of escapism is what makes this sound so special.

Few bands do.