Wednesday 18 February 2009

Q Magazine Track Of The Day 17/02/08

Sambassadeur - That Town

Perhaps it's the weather, or maybe the relative lack of daylight. We'll probably never really know why, but over the past few years the Swedes have unceremoniously usurped their northern neighbours the Scots to become the ultimate purveyors of goofy, glorious and ever-so-marvellously-twee indie pop. With such notable exports (it would be misleading to call them heavyweights) as The Concretes, Jens Lekman, I'm From Barcelona and Peter, Bjorn and John, there seems to be an inexhaustible pool of talent to be plundered.

With their latest offering, That Town, Gothenburg quartet Sambassadeur kindly confirm to us that the Scandinavian invasion is set to continue; the conveyor belt isn't finished just yet. Sambassadeur (named after Serge Gainsbourg's Les Sambassadeurs) have been about for a while now; they formed in 2003 and That Town is taken from their second effort, Migration. Lead singer Anna Persson's dreamlike vocals are not unlike compatriot Victoria Bergsman, of the aforementioned Concretes, but most recently spotted on solo project Taken By Trees: subtle and reserved, but cute as you like.

The sound here is distinctly retro, drawing a lo-fi line between crackly 80s murmur pop and 60s sunshine melodies. Led by an irresistible woodwind hook, it's deceptively dense; there's more going on than you might initially think. That Town has a timelessness that suggests we would've lapped this up twenty years ago, and probably will again twenty years from now.

Originally published here: http://news.q4music.com/2009/02/sambassadeur_that_town.html

Video: Sambassadeur - That Town


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