Wednesday 17 March 2010



A new slang

(photo: myspace.com/brokenbells)

The idea of Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton and Shins singer James Mercer collaborating as Broken Bells made me rise an eyebrow at first, but the project fell off my radar in the gap between announcement and the delivery of any notable product.  I had all but forgotten about it until I saw the CD sitting on the counter at Starbucks the other week, at which point I really lost interest in it; something about buying music where I get my coffee just doesn’t jive with me.  I was about to make a comment about it to my partner (who was with me at the time) when I looked over at the other side of the counter and noticed Spoon’s Transference sitting in the rack there.  It was enough to make me chuckle to myself.  There was one of my favourite album’s of the year so far, and would I really disown it just because it’s for sale in a chain coffee shop?

So I’ve checked out Broken Bells, and I’m really glad I did.  It’s pretty much the quirky, experimental pop record I expected it would be which turns out to be better than I could have guessed.  Mercer’s falsetto work on “The Ghost Inside” is radical (both in the “cool” sense and the “far reaching” sense) , and the arrangements are by far some of my favourite Danger Mouse songs.  The most direct comparison would be to Beck’s Modern Guilt (an album I liked even though it didn’t get a lot of high praise), but the spacey, jazzy vibe gives lifts the production out of the cloud of doom that could have engulfed it.  It’s too early to say whether this LP has the legs to keep me listening all the way through the end of the year, but I’d have no qualms about recommending it right now.

MP3: Broken Bells “The High Road”
Myspace: Broken Bells





by J. Di Gioia | Comments Off

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