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a review by john eyles of
release format Home by Beady Belle (CD Album)

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Beady Belle is a joint collaboration between singer Beate Lech and bassist Marius Reksjo, but it is Beate (pronounced Bee-art-ey) who appears in all ten of the sleeve photographs. (But then she is very photogenic!)

More importantly, she also has a powerful soulful voice and writes quirky lyrics that are simultaneously funny (ha-ha and peculiar) and touching. When these lyrics are combined with the strong melodies written by Lech and Rekjo, the songs are the kind that you find yourself singing along to on the second play, and that stick in your head long after that.

Jazzlands is the label of Bugge Wesseltoft, who is spearheading a Norwegian jazz movement that combines elements of jazz, funk, dub and ambient into a distinctive new sound, the so-called 'Underground Sound of Oslo'.

Wesseltoft plays keyboards and is responsible for vocal production on several tracks here. His characteristic genre-bending is as evident on this album as on his own. The music here straddles jazz, soul, techno, drum'n'bass, ambient and pop, and the end result is rhythmically compelling and highly danceable.

On an album without a weak track, 'Drawback' is one of the best. Opening with electric sitar, it is soon into a danceable shuffle beat over which Beate's voice soars. The lyrics tell a tragic tale of a dog that starves to death because it is so well trained that it would not yelp even when it was tied up and forgotten. The chorus gives us the motto of the tale: "That's the dark side of obedience". A darkly subversive little piece.

This is an excellent debut. Beady Belle are worth watching out for. Posted by john eyles at 00:00, 28 Jun 2001