Bobby Conn – Bobby’s Place

Tapete

It is always a pleasure and a journey of discovery to receive a new Bobby Conn album and even after nearly thirty years of releasing his personal yet immensely memorable missives, this latest, his second for relatively new home Tapete and first since 2020’s Recovery is a real game of two halves and quite the curveball.

There are two very different sides to the artwork and a schizophrenic feel to the material, with one half three long instrumental pieces and the other half playful and joyous vocal tracks. Although the same team has convened that helped make Recovery such a delight, Bobby’s Place is a different animal.

Splitting the album in two like this makes for an interesting experience and the opening “Jay & Bee” has some jaunty synths and a shuffling rhythmic groove with a Latin lilt that puts in mind a soundtrack. It is a real change from the previous album and skips and jumps around the rhythm with gay abandon; but you can’t help thinking that perhaps because of the state of things in the US, has Bobby withdrawn from making some sort of comment because it is all too much?

The instrumental odyssey continues with the ambient leaning “Wretched” that revels in flute and piccolo as more impending textures bubble up. An air of tension is finally released with the advent of helicopter synths pushing again into newer territory. There is a sense of hypnotic momentum that doesn’t prepare you for the romantic swing of “All For You” with its sublime ba-ba-ba’s and easy sway. The fact that it descends into a banging synth groove with weird voices and metallic textures pushing it into chaos says everything about the opening salvo. So far, so modern electronic.

The rest of the six tracks change tack entirely, with Bobby’s voice finally arriving on “Bobby’s Place” and it sounds like a delightful location to be. Over something sounding like a comedy show intro, he tells us that how “I’ll make you a sandwich, fix you a drink, rotate your tyres, unclog your sink”. If the previous vocal-less pieces were a reaction to the state of the nation, here he is offering a utopia in which we are all welcome… there is even a bassoon.

So for the rest of the album, the brakes are off and it is choppy rock’n’roll guitar and hammered piano that introduces the NY sleaze of “Never Felt Better”, while “Juicy Goons” opens with Cars– like power pop with a touch of ’70’s glam David Bowie. As ever, the trip down memory lane has his inimitable twist and that falsetto is really put to work on “Sixties Babies” and as he tells us, “If you want to hear some rock’n’roll, I’m your man”.

The charm continues unabated, with “Nostalgia” being a crooner-led horn-blasted joy of an arrangement, while closer “Satisfied?” is more insistent power pop, but with added pizazz. Bobby’s Place is a seriously welcome return and one that gives more up with every visit.

-Mr Olivetti-