PRICE:
$23.00
LOW STOCK LEVEL
1-2 Weeks
ARTIST
TITLE
Deep Blue View
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
DOOKAH 082LP DOOKAH 082LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
10/15/2021

AM Jazz was the moment we all became truly acquainted with Alan Roberts; the melodic maestro beneath Jim Noir's dandy exterior. No less than 12 months later arrives Deep Blue View -- not so much of a follow-up, as a mini-flipside moving the Jazz from AM to PM, between city and sea. Usually by now, Daveyhulme's own could-be John Barry would have left distractions of success for suburban side-projects and writing with his fellow Mancunian musicians, but AM Jazz left unfinished business -- and, with 50 or so session recordings leaving a litter of sonic debris strewn about the cutting room floor, one major clean-up. Deep Blue View is six brand new tracks crafted from its reconstructed and revived remnants, unfurling like Sinatra's Wee Small Hours to reinforce the strangely beautiful atmosphere of Al's now revered repertoire. Just as AM Jazz was created in the spirit of his earlier working style on debut album Tower of Love, Deep Blue View fuses Al's love of finding the "right" in the odd, weird, back-to-front and everything in between, with the hi-fi meets lo-fi sounds of his crate-digging curiosity and empathy for TV themes and movie soundtracks. Guided by melody, his home-based sorcery of working with analog, tape and field recordings opposed to the lure of studio mechanics allowed his inner subconscious to tap at the door and reveal itself in new musical forms. Setting his inner autopilot to flight mode, "Peppergone" adds to the tracks' nocturnal narrative and appears reborn after a last-minute culling from AM Jazz's initial tracklist. Like a beautifully romantic ode to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, it is a fitting tribute to dearly departed best friend "Batfinks", written in the middle of a tough night. Also revived from AM Jazz's archive is the simmering groove of "Night Talk Late Street" and instrumental "Star Six Seven", whilst "Have Another Cigar" weaves its own semi-autobiographical fairy-tale with lyrics written and sung by long-time pal and former housemate Aidan Smith. Transformed from backing track into a cool morsel of story pop, it recalls the drunken joy of when the pair would make recordings together between singing the Everly Brothers at full volume. "String Beat" meanwhile, soars like a beautiful Bond theme with the shimmer of Lee Hazlewood holidaying in Palm Springs, alongside perhaps, the waltzing string-like synthonies of some long-lost rhythm and blues orchestra of Davyhulme, introduced to him by Super Furry Animals' Cian Ciaran. Clear vinyl.