As with so many before them, Shawn King and Nate Flanigan
met at art school. After loosing contact, they were
reacquainted at the Fireside Bowl, a Chicago subsidiary
of the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame. By then, the pair had
decided that rock wouldn’t allow them to express their
creativity in the way they wanted. This could sound
like a very common story, and, in many aspects, it is.
However, listening to their first mini album, released
on Plug Research, one can’t help admiring their biased
approach to electronica.
The music created by Soulo displays typical characteristics
of the duo’s influences. As they borrow sounds from
both rock and electronica, Flanigan and King manage
to give a modern edge to their catchy pop creations.
Because of the format adopted by Soulo, the listener
expects to hear a vocal section kicking in at any time.
The compositions are, however, fully instrumentals.
The music here is more minimalist than initially perceptible.
Melodies are simple and stripped of any unwanted excess.
The arrangements are equally pure and fluid, as they
are built around a plain nucleus of sonic sources.
If the band apply a considerable amount of live sounds
to their songs, guitars and drums being among the most
used, the treatment to which they subject them leaves
very little identifiable elements of the original samples.
Soulo intentionally blur the border between real instruments
and artificial ones, and it becomes increasingly difficult
to tell them apart as the album progresses. The apparent
simplicity of the melodies hides the complexity of the
underlying structures. Tracks such as This Is The
Same As It Always Was, Rubberbands or
Simple capture the imagination of the listener,
while Soulo, insidiously, inject some subtle constructions
in their subconscious. Other tracks, like Transtician,
24 Hours On The Phone or Whatever You Want,
are far more upfront, as if the pair hesitated between
perversity and honesty.
Soulo are neither the first band, nor the last, to try
to merge pop/rock and electronica, but it must be said
that this first effort is rather convincing. The pair
have got the balance right here, and, given the chance,
they could soon become part of our everyday life.
4/5 |
