Hypnotic Sounds To My Ears

Yelle “Safari Disco Club”

I think she’s singing about animals dancing, but it doesn’t really matter. Like most Yelle songs, this is about the bounce of the beats, the brightness of the synthesizer tones, and this particular quality to her voice that is very captivating but sorta hard to explain. I love her assertive style, the way she kinda declares every line, but what really excites me is something in the very timbre of her voice. I like the way her vocals are treated here — it’s mostly her natural tone, but at some points it’s warped and extended. I imagine her voice hardening, becoming something like a force field. Everything just bounces off it, you know?

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Fergus & Geronimo “Girls With English Accents”

When I saw this title on the back cover of this CD, I really wanted to like the song because like most any reasonable person, I have a major soft spot for girls with English accents. Thank goodness this is a fitting tribute. The sound of it very mid-60s British rock, but filtered through a loose, stoned, free-wheeling American vibe. When they sing about wanting to visit England, they seem as if they’ve spent all their time listening to British Invasion records fantasizing about the bands’ groupies.

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