The Trademark EP

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Somedays music just doesn't do it for you. Maybe you've been listening to too much, maybe you're stagnating, maybe you just can't find anything new, maybe it's the climate, and probably it's just your mood; Whatever the reasons, when you feel that way it usually takes something pretty special to stand out and catch your attention, and thats where Stoloff & Hopkinson comes in.

Stylized and cinematic, borrowing as heavily from the iconography of French new wave cinema as it does from the musical works of people like Serge Gainsbourg and Jaqcues Brel, and dashed with a heavy dose of irony skewed swinging London chic - think Avengers and Austin Powers, this record makes you smile.

Sensual vocals whisper breezily against swelling atmospherics and funky basslines; fragments of soundtrack, the feel of artistocrasy and finesse, drum loops shimmer through dsp filters and with a refreshing sense of humor, never taking itself too seriously, yet never becoming self-parody.
The CD is frustratingly short, only allowing us a glimpse of S + H's musical vision. Three full tracks and one instrumental version, separated by short interludes - The swiss mountain freshness of 'Idead', with its elegant stretched tones, classical piano, tumbling drums and breathy seductive voice-over, which melts into one shimmering sexual groove; The more sparse and electronic mutations we hear with 'Dual' where melodies flow and ebb into the current of twisted, bubbling and building percussion; And 'Woodpecker' which takes the French pop sound and somehows melds it with some timestretched micro-sampled acid beat to unleash a pop monster, uptempo and stomping with a summertime bassline.

Crazy inspired madness by what I assume to be two musical nutters!
Highly recommended.