“solo”
S.O.L.O.
Out Is In
Sulfur/Beggars Banquet
The opening “Angel Of Love” sounds like what they’d play in an elevator descending from the Fifth to the Fourth Circle of Hell. Soothing, lush strings… yet there’s something distressingly subtle and wrong about it. Perhaps the cliche is too well done. S.O.L.O. seems to delight in adding exactly the perfect wrong element, it would seem, and the effect is well worth it. “Tummy Finger” has a strolling jazz bass, a recurring blues vocal sample and a bubbly boop line. As expected, it also has some not-so-chirpy elements. I’ll be hornswoggled if “The Batchelor Party” [sic] doesn’t kick off with a sample from Radio Puntarenas, voice of many a beach trip in my youth. It’s followed by a peppy collage of jazzy snippets. S.O.L.O. manage to be smart and funny in their particular style of cut-up, and it’s rare when the two mesh so well.
Beggars Banquet, 580 Broadway, Suite 1004, New York, NY 10012; http://www.beggars.com
