- Music
- 25 Oct 01
Versebridgechorus contains everything from Andy Williams samples to collaborations with acoustic balladeers Ben & Jason, and quite a bit more besides
Listening to Kinobe’s second album is like dipping into a mixed bag of extremely sugary confectionery.
For those of you expecting them to be the Airs apparent to the French chill-out kings, think again. For those predicting a more laid-back Morcheeba, you’re not quite there. And those of you anticipating a dozen variations on single ‘Summer In The Studio’ will be seriously surprised.
Versebridgechorus contains everything from Andy Williams samples to collaborations with acoustic balladeers Ben & Jason, and quite a bit more besides.
You have the acoustic opener, ‘Butterfly’, soaked in strings, silky vocals and sumptious production, which is quickly followed by the horizontal chilled-out instrumental ‘Having A Moment’. Two songs in and it’s already clear that Mark Blackburn and Julius Waters aren’t going for cheap thrills, but are aiming for something more serious and lasting.
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‘Secret Garden’ sounds like the product of a chance meeting between Kate Bush and Zero 7, while ‘Slave One’ has enough pent-up sexual tension for a Martin Gore composition,
The closing ‘Unfair Weather’ is superb, like Radiohead with more melody and a time-limit, and yet it takes them an age to find the rhythm of ‘The G# Spot’ – I know size isn’t everything but some bigger beats would have gone a long way towards bringing this overlong tune towards something of a climax.
As a project, Versebridgechorus is ambitious, but at times you get the feeling that Kinobe are stretching in too many directions, with the end result that they have spread themselves far too thin.