The perfect pop record: it’s an elusive goal. Some people say Pet Sounds, others any one of a rake of great singles from the collected works of Abba. In either case, they wouldn’t be far wide of the mark. But the magic pop gene also disports itself in all sorts of musically diverse situations, from ‘We Are Family’ by Sister Sledge, through ‘Perfect’ by Fairground Attraction, to ‘There She Goes’ by the Las.
There is a moment on ‘Paperback Cliché’ – the first single from Dancing On Tables Barefoot – where you feel its presence. There’s a lovely warm, light, propulsive quality to the track. But when the chorus kicks in with its opening minor chord, and the cellos drive the rhythm along with a burst of dramatic stabs, you sense where it’s heading. As the track builds, the drum fills are just so, the guitar intervenes precisely the way you know it should and out front, there’s a gorgeous ache in Tara Blaise’s vocal delivery that couldn’t be better pitched. Sure, it’s slick, and lo fi it ain’t – but I’m a sucker for this kind of pop craft. Here it works a dream. Already a huge radio hit in Ireland, it’s just one of many potential chart singles on what is an extremely impressive debut.
Tara Blaise – aka Tara Egan Langley – has been there or thereabouts in the past with The Wild Oscars and Kaydee only to see the dream unravel. Now, however, the songs and the vision are her own. Dancing On Tables Barefoot is her calling card and a highly impressive one it is too.
The opening track ‘The Three Degrees’ is another fine slice of upbeat nostalgia, with an evervescent and winning chorus. About a trio of girl friends who stole the appelation and made hay under the glow of its spell, rather than the group of the same name, it’s the perfect introduction to the ambience of the record. With allusions to Hogan's, the Globe and the Strand, it captures the buzz of Dublin on its better days when the sun shines and the place seems full of possibilities.
On an initial encounter, people might think of it as girlie, but there’s a bohemian streak, and a sense of independence and intelligence, running through it, and indeed through the album as a whole, that ensures there’s much more going on here here than mere chocolate box romance.
The lovely expresso froth of the daytime radio contenders notwithstanding, inevitably it is downbeat more often than not, with the complex of insecurity, anxiety and occasional depression that attends the single life showing its roots. “And as he went I tried to call him,” she sings in ‘Fool For Love’, “But I couldn’t get the words out.” There’s an intensity reminiscent of Kate Bush, clearly a major influence, in the songs, and in the melodies too – a feeling that we are entering someone’s private world and getting a glimpse of them on their own and looking hard at themselves in the mirror.
“Here in this place/I’m never alone/I scrutinise this turbulent soul,” she confesses in the stately ‘Unbearable Lightness’, a song about the ultimate fragility of our hold on things. You get the sense that it is her own inner demons that she cannot fully escape.
But the worldview is ultimately positive and uplifting. It isn’t just the fact that Tara sings so well, or the lovely melodic flourishes with which she laces the music. In ‘21 Years’, she deals with the death of her father by celebrating the time that they had together, rather than mourning his loss. In doing so she distils what makes Dancing On Tables Barefoot such an attractive proposition. It is a warm and honest record, lit by a genuine sense of personal adventure, and delivered with feeling and panache in equal measure.