- On West Coast, Studio chart the previously undiscovered lines between The Cure, Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses, Can and DJ Alfredo. The result? Baggy Balearic. The album conjures images of people relaxing on an Ibizan beach wearing all white in 1982, waving their palms gracefully in the air while they gentle shuffle their feet. That and Ian Brown-a-likes swaggering around the Northern Quarter of Manchester feeling pleased with themselves. Although the two appear an unlikely combination, Studio make it work spectacularly well, and the result is one of the year's best albums.
Once you begin to look at it, it's a wonder nobody's done this before. Both Balearic and Baggy eschew traditional drums in favour of more afro sounding beats, can't be arsed vocals, loose basslines, and a general feel of being slightly stoned. West Coast correspondingly ranges from the flat out horizontal lushness of 'Indo' to 'Self Service' and 'Origin', the latter of which even manages to temporarily rock out. Swedes Dan Lissvik and Rasmus Hägg, for they are Studio, augment their sound with delayed and echoed effects, hints of pop and insinuations of the experimental to give the album an thoughtful and airy elegance. It feels timeless, old and modern at the same time, a trick only Metro Area seemed to be doing well at the moment. They now have stiff competition.
West Coast was actually released in 2006, and sold out super fast. Technically this is a re-release but that doesn't matter since it would probably sound fresh ten years from now. A sign of how far these guys will go is that they've just done a (splendid) version of Kylie Minogue's new single. I would suggest you listen now before they're everywhere and you get sick of them, but even if they were, I'm not sure you would.
Tracklist01 Out There
02 West Side
03 Self Service
04 Origin
05 Life's a Beach!
06 Indo