Cool Blue Exit would appear to be one man, James Schappert, and a personal mission to bring stark 80’s electronic music with a twist into the public consciousness. This album is stark and cold yet also bizarrely melodic and inviting. Utilising a backdrop of programmed drums, bleeps, blips, whooshes and whirrs it builds with gentle guitar lines, synth stabs and a voice that loiters with intent somewhere between David Bowie and Roy Harper.
It is not an immediate record but repeat listening will draw you into the Cool Blue Exit world. A world of restrained feelings, where vocals seem to have been filtered through space dust and the temperature of the room seems to have dropped by 10 degrees. His voice varies from alienated to raging as though he’s on the brink of an extreme act of violence. A very cathartic act of violence at that.
At first it is intriguing, unnerving and dis-orientating. The electronic contributions have nothing to do with dance music but rather are used in a sparing, clinical way that distances the listener from the music. The guitar invites you in and on ‘Shadow’ finally let’s rip (albeit in a very controlled kind of a way). On ‘Why Can’t We’ there’s some triumphant synth action that appears like a bolt from the blue. Once you have got your head round this unique sound you soon warm to it (and him) and you allow yourself to be lost in those Space Invader beats and edge of madness vocals.
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Stretched over a whole album however all this can be quite wearing. ‘Under Blue Sky’ is rather one paced with songs merging into each other. The voice can begin to grate and you find the feeling of alienation is complete, including a feeling of alienation from the record itself. In the past the bands that managed to capture those feelings of alienation could also move your feet, The Smiths and Joy Division springing to mind. Cool Blue Exit though have bypassed the dance floor and our more primeval instincts and stuck with the cerebral.
To it’s credit it is unlike anything else around at the moment and in this age of the individual and the fracturing of society it comes across as a bold statement (whether intentional or not). The choice put before you I guess is whether you wish to be reminded of this or whether you’d like to fiddle whilst Rome burns.
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