The Underground of Happiness

The second album of the year produced by John McEntire of Tortoise which is guaranteed to feature in my end of year faves list (the first was Yo La Tengo’s Fade ). And it’s another match made in paradise. V.O. is a band of elegantly cut men and women out of Brussels lead by the superbly moustached Boris Gronemberger who follow a broad jazz pop manifesto. What does that mean? Well, there are smooth brass swells, slinky keyboard themes, deliciously low-key male-female harmonies, slow and sure unwinding vocal melodies, tidy unfussy stickwork. The single ‘When you see red’ has all of these things, as well as a breezy, propulsive bass (synth) line. But although it nods to the lounge and the smoking jacket, it gradually reveals itself to be a protest song, or more precisely a song of counsel to the 21st century dispossessed (that’s you and me, friends). The fact that such a conceit is smuggled in such a smooth package is a brilliant sleight of hand which makes the message doubly...

V.O. are a well-established six-piece from Brussels (although new to me), centred around the elegantly moustached Boris Gronemberger. On their third album they've hooked up with John McEntire of Tortoise on production and the results are stunning. More on the album anon, but for now sample this intoxicating first single. It might make you think of Stereolab a little in the vintage synth lines, maybe Tortoise in some cultured jazz inflections. The glorious male-female harmonies (the latter by Aurelie Muller, ex Soy Un Caballo) around simple keyboard repetitions might even make you think of a folkier Beach Boys, but there's something brilliantly progressive in the restless, shifting bass melody and massively uplifting in those serene brass swells that makes this sound all their own. It also seems to be a protest song, a call to arms which of course is stirring enough in itself, but apart from that, as I said earlier, it's irresistible and bar-raising pop music....

Beguiling prog pop from Brussels of all places, courtesy of Boris Gronemberger and friends, produced by a man who knows a thing or two about the genre, John McEntire. Like tabasco in a Bloody Mary, it’s smooth and subtle but with a distinct kick.