Aloan - Better In Springtime

Aloan is a acid jazz trip hop band out of Geneva Switzerland, who after the release of their third album, "Better in Springtime" are starting to gain a following throughout Europe and making their way to the more enlightened ears through out the Americas and the Eastern world as well. They have a sort of unique mix of styles who makes them stand out from many of the others in their field. A delightfully refreshing mixture of blues, jazz, trip hop, rap, ambient, classical, and soul with small hints of atmosphere tossed in there where it just makes it gold. Its no wonder that "Better in Springtime" is being called the album which will get them noticed.

The album starts out with a beautiful acid jazz track called "One Dance for Destiny" a song that reminds me alot of Eryka Badu in both vocals and in music, a truly beautiful track about giving one last chance with someone she just can't give up, incredibly done, the right mix of old and new, great way to start off an album, and also the best way to set the tone that will carry through to entire disc, many times through out your musical journey you'll find yourself coming back to this, normally with some incredibly well done rap put in there too, from there we jump to two club ready disco tracks "Rise" and "The Good Day" both great in their own respects, though i would personally give the edge to "The Good Day" but thats just me. From there we go to "In Time" a very mellow downtempo acid bluestronica track, all the things you need for a good track are here, the beat, the perfectly done vocals, the right touches to the music at the right moments, just beautifully done. the next track bring us back to the style from the start of the disc again but with alittle more aggressive this time "I'm Your Tears" its called, the beat is hypnotic and the rap is dropped in at just the right spots, very well done. "I'll Never Be A Woman" is a very dark and smokey electronica song hidden as a blues song, I love the bridge of this, it just drives me insane with how great it is, this is the kind of song you would find as the background music in the sex scene of some indie movie, its just amazing. "Tonight I'll Kill You" is probably the harshest track on the album, and about as close to angry aggressive rap you'll find on here, which I like, not that I mind harsh hard rap, but well, this just makes the concept awesome, not bad for a song about not really believing in god I think, angry rap that makes you think, who knew that was possible in this day and age eh? From there we jump downtempo again with "Hopefully" a very lovely song that starts out with this great classical and piano bit, which highlights the vocals to a level thats almost acapella, which makes me wonder just how great it would have sounded that way, as the song progresses you find bits of crashing almost nightwish like guitars tossed in at the right spots, and an angry bit of rap tossed in, this is a song is a true adventure in sonic manipulation and I love it for that! "Get On Top" is a very awesome base heavy lowrider ready rap track thats just awesome and would get played on any rap station anywhere in the world and get tons of play, course that'll never happen, but hey, a guy can dream right? "Dreaming" is a nice contrast to the track before, a very lovely track that again brings us back to the flavor from the begining of the album, there are more hints of the trip hop and electronic in this one though, I love how they expand the sonic envelope abit, then come back to the feel at the start again, its such a great trip to be taken on. "Sick Little Doll" sounds alot like a soul song straight out of the 1970s golden age of soul, there are bits of Tammy Tarell and later career Diana Ross before she started doing horrible disco tracks in there, and little bits of Roberta Flack and Minnie Riperton in there too, very nice, I also love how it was run through a filter to give it that old scratchy record feel, it just adds to just how great this is. "We Got What You Want" is a really nice autobiographical track, its a very middle eastern infused laid back rap track that jumps between the bands history to political fuses to just plain boombastic hip hop. The album ends with "Better in Springtime", a lovely track that starts out like a blues song and ends up something akin to "Black Velvet" that great one hit wonder track by the underated and shouldn't be forgotten but is Alannah Myles, its a lovely end to an album that takes us all over the musical map and leaves us wanting more.

I'm not sure if everyone will like this, I know I did, and I would guess that most people would give it a chance, there is after all something for everyone in it, which is a rarity in the world of music these days, I would even go far enough to say its actually worth going and buying a copy of it, but to a sad end, most music shops probably wouldn't have something this obscure, shame too. Give it a try, see if you like it, they've got two other albums out there if you like this one.

Aloan - Better in Springtime

Artist: Aloan
Album: Better In Springtime
Genre: Trip Hop,Electrojazz,Jazz,Blues,Bluestronica,hip hop,Disco,Club


by: Just A Simple Poet