The Concretes (Licking Fingers)
On paper it doesn’t look good: in 1995 three Stockholm women form a band whose stock-in-trade is wisps of melody augmented by vocals like air freshener.
And, though they provide the primary creative force, the trio expand the line-up and decisions are made by the laborious process of consensus. They take four years to make an EP and eight years to release a full album.
The Concretes could hardly be accused of a “get rich quick” mindset, but their ploy deserves to work. This self-titled debut lays bare their manifesto: that pop’s zenith was the more swoonsome narcotic moments of the 1960s. Think of Velvet Underground or Phil Spector’s ethereal wall of sound productions, but re-cast with the vocalist Victoria Bergsman’s airy trill and a mob-handed orchestral backing.
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The lovely New Friend sounds like Nico coming round after an operation, pleasantly surprised that it has worked. Warm Night is an artlessly shambling orchestrated sing-along and Foreign Country is different again: a kindergarten piano lesson with a beguiling vocal.
The Concretes are not the first band to plunder the 1960s; but their feat is to avoid pastiche and make an album that is as varied as a car boot sale.
Michael Odell