Soeza

Album Review:

Soeza

Why do you do?
(Gringo Records: http://www.gringorecords.com/)

Part of the beauty with “Setting Sun” is the discovery of new music.

Some times it has been accidents, through listening to tracks downloaded almost at random from the internet or other times picking up on acts or bands through the radio (even occasionally the telly) or through friends.

Most of the fun though has been on word of mouth through artists themselves telling me of other bands or other projects they are involved.

I first became of Matt Elliott (formely Third Eye Foundation) through his work in Flying Saucer Attack and Movietone, before he went solo with Third Eye Foundation and then music under his own name.

Through his solo music, I then met Chris Cole (who also is / was a member of Movietone) who has backed Matt on his last two albums “The Mess We Made” and “Drinking Songs” and ended up listening to his solo albums under the name of “Manyfingers” and was bowled by the different dimensions “Manyfingers” sometimes went into sometimes within the same song.

So to discover through Chris, he also played drums, percussion and cello in another band “Soeza” which he described perhaps close to Fugazi was certainly something that was going to be well worth listening even if it was a totally different musical ball-game than any of the other projects I have known him to be involved with.

And it is, believe me.

Although I couldn’t perhaps from a personal angle see Fugazi in the sounds, I certainly could see a Delgados sort of feel to things on several tracks expect more avant-garde on for example on one of the tracks which was described on a review on Ink 19 as “The most interesting musical moment on the album comes on "Make It," when the rock pauses for roughly ten seconds of the sound of rain gently falling against a windowpane. This sort of juxtaposition could be misconstrued as pretension, but Soeza keeps the whole album playful (check out the melodica and "bah bahs" on "They Glow at Night")”.

On a personal level, I think I probably enjoyed the first few tracks the most, in particular the brashness on the second track “Jack Jones”, which certainly does not sound like the 60’s singer, but has a swagger that certainly shows a band with their own identity.

Either way, despite the fact the music was certainly not what I was expecting, I found the album particularly well played and produced, which is particularly cool considering there are if my memory is correct there are 6 or 7 people in the band, I could certainly hear Chris’s input frequently during the album, but then in the next heart-beat I could hear another two or three person’s contributions, which is pretty rare for a band, but just as enjoyable and covers the full spectrum of why I love “Setting Sun” so much.

Thanks Chris.