Primo! – Sogni

Upset The Rhythm (UK) / Antifade (Australia)

It is great to see that Upset The Rhythm have squeezed another album out of Australian fun-lovers Primo! With their feel good blend of simple C86 / Sarah Records-inspired tunes and low-key but charming vocalising, they are a perfect antidote to the doom and gloom surrounding the current world situation.

Primo! aren’t so fluffy that they will float away at a moment’s notice, but your head will not be hanging in despair either. The photograph of the band on the cover shows guitars and bass, plus there are definitely drums in there as well alongside other welcome additions; like maybe a melodica on the rather queasy “Rolling Stone” that is really hard to pin down, with its odd time changes and distant xylophone, or the really pretty descending keyboard on “Comedy Show”.

The drums and bass are really subtle across the album, with the bass and rhythm guitar often hand in hand; but the rhythm section itself always allow the songs relatively easy passage. There is an irrepressibility ( if that is even a word) that speeds the tracks along, but is somehow tempered by the low-key vocals, and there are enough surprises and momentary diversions to keep you interested.

I am assuming from the different writing on the insert that there are numerous songwriters in the group. It is certainly the feeling anyway. The fuzzy slo-mo guitar with low-key distant voices on the opener “Things To Do” is very different from the classic rolling indie beat of the follower “Perfect Paper”. Any song that goes into the minutiae of written correspondence will always have my vote, and its cheese-cutter guitar and sunny ba-ba-bas are charming and naive in a smile-inducing way. The different sensibilities are also apparent in the lyrics, which are at ties oblique and at others just feel-good poetry.

The organ that seems to be lurking in the background of “The Present” makes way for some urgent drums fills that hurtle past, but closer “Reverie” is just that; slow, dreamy and hypnotic. There is something drifty about the vocals that Stereolab would have appreciated, with a shadow of something haunting the background.

It is a great ending to an album that is hard to fault, and charms further with every play. Well done UTR and Antifade!

-Mr Olivetti-