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Album Reviews
Album Review: ceo – White Magic (Modular Records/Yours Sincerely)
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 7 September 2010
‘White Magic’ isn’t, on paper at least, the most enticing of records; an album of Balearic-tinged Baroque pop by one half of a duo known for, well, Balearic-tinged Baroque pop. This, Eric Berglund of The Tough Alliance’s debut album under the ceo moniker, is a record heavily indebted to the work of its creator’s day-job.
The fact that it could possibly just be another Tough Alliance release is its greatest strength and most crippling weakness. It sticks faithfully, perhaps too faithfully some may argue, to the TA blueprint. The songs come in two flavours: familiar sounding melodies transposed onto vaguely dancey backing tracks (‘Oh God, Oh Dear’, ‘No Mercy’) or Left Banke style wistful 60s pop (‘All Around’, ‘Illuminata’)
Stand-out track ‘Come With Me’ demonstrates the potential that this album had. It’s a sublime example of how pop classicism and dance music don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The track’s anchored by a doleful, dubbed-out bassline that repeats it’s sombre march over and over again whilst sad, surely azure blue (to all the synesthetes out there) synths buzz around Berglund’s keening vocal. Then a piano line reminiscent of ‘Children’ by Robert Miles comes in, winding round the skippy percussion until the whole thing, sounding like it could feasibly loop into eternity, fades out into the ether. It’s the type of song that suites the late-night bedroom dreamers as much as the early-morning blissed out clubbers.
If only the rest of the album was as strong. As it stands, ‘White Magic’ is the sound of end of summer regrets. We’re left, here in September, wondering about what could have been. JAB.
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