The Big Idea seems to be that you can blend mild r&b pop with light World Music (mainly Bollywood with a little Rai?) flavouring, fill the songs with lurve and emotion and deliver a sub-Bono lecture series all in one package. Objectives would include tending the oceans, persuading Israel and Palestine to get along and have everyone realise what Good People Gandhi, JFK, and some other Good People were. Add on a pamphlet of self-improvement tips about standing up for your beliefs, resisting oppression and not trusting politicians and you’re nearly there. With three pretty young women standing up front for the (quality) singing and the uglier musician blokes in the background writing the tunes, find a little Corporate Endorsement (surf boards, drumsticks and so on) and you really have a twenty first century Ethical Investment with Serious Earning Potential. A bit like Ben and Jerry perhaps.
Sadly, the ice cream doesn’t really come up to Cherry Garcia standards. The somewhat timid pop and pseudo World Flavours are professional enough. They're homogenised and finely blended and wouldn’t upset anyone by being too roots. Soft palettes will find it interestingly spicy. A bit like a Macdonald's version of an ethnic dessert. Public Service Broadcasting, Armed Services Entertainment Shows, shopping malls – these might be the sorts of places where you would be quite pleased to hear this kind of non-standard music trying to do a bit of cultural stretching.
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For myself, curmudgeonly old Peel Generation Misfit that I am, I just can’t tell whether this really is the work of astonishingly open hearted naievety that it seems to be. Maybe it's just a misdirected outburst of commercial ambition? I don’t know. There's a lot going on in the United States these days that I just don’t understand. I feel comfortable with Cornershop, with the Buena Vista Social Club, with Robert Plant at the Festival in the Desert and with Taj Mahal playing with Toumani Diabate. Even Paul Simon recruiting Ladysmith Black Mambaso makes sense. But I just don’t get this, and I suspect the whisperin' and hollerin' reader who picks up on our hints to wander over to the likes of Handsome Family, Low, Editors, Steven Brown or Trail of Dead would be a bit shocked if I endorsed LIQUID BLUE, however much of a surfboard I am in my bones.
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