London based duo Galia Durant and Carim Clasman inhabit a world of oddball musical invention. Toying with influences as disparate as Tom Waits, Duke Ellington and Erik Satie, they gleefully ride roughshod over conventions and conjure up idiosyncratic pop gems from a witty and eclectic bag of sonic tricks.
This record has the delicate charm and mystique of a music box that has been stumbled across in a dusty attic. The barely-there beats and staccato rhythms combine with Durant’s plaintive timbre and Casio keys to take the listener on a whimsical aural adventure. The pair employ an otherworld of non-musical paraphernalia, from kitchen utensils to de-commissioned toys, to create this ‘through the looking glass’ experience.
The songs are like delicate trinkets assembled on an opulent sonic mantel. The opener ‘Hi’ has Durant’s dreamy vocals, a Waitsian guitar riff and a woozy marimba loop in a merry cadence. ‘King Of You’ displays the group’s jazzy leanings but in typically obtuse fashion, while the glitch-pop and strings duet of ‘This Way’ is an irresistibly fluffy combination. The ethereal elegance of ‘Needle And Thread’ and ‘New Rubbers’ maintains the album’s playful grace. As a foil, the sombre piano figures on ‘Hill Of Our Home’ mixes with some Bedouin weirdness to create a wonderful moment of melancholic introspection.
Psapp’s airy concoctions may be a little too delicate for those with a more robust palette, but the records of such mischievous imagination and careworn beauty like this should really be savoured.