Genre: Indie Pop|Folk Pop
This is one of my favourite albums to come out this year. I don't feel like writing a complete review, so here are some snippets of Nick Southall's review on Drowned in Sound:
"First things first. The Dø are a Franco-Finnish duo comprised of Dan Levy and Olivia B. Merilahti. The band name is drawn from the initials of their first names. Their MySpace page lists their influences as “Bela Bartok, Jimi Hendrix, Thelonious Monk, Ella Fitzgerald, Nico, Igor Stravinsky, The Who, Bird, The Last Poets, Coltrane, Björk, Monte !, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Mingus, Eminem, The WuTangClan, Lauryn Hill, Betty Davis, Queen, The Beatles, Tom Waits, Art Pepper, Toumast, Frank Zappa, Young marble giants, Duke Ellington, The White Stripes , Peaches, Michael Jackson, BECK, Joanna Newsom, Patti Smith.”
"Above and beyond that impressively eclectic list, The Dø sound, at various points, like a female Eminem backed by a brass band, like The Cardigans stripped to nothing but a jazzy guitar strum and a sexy whisper, like ‘Iko Iko’ by The Dixie Cups re-imagined by Pingu, like Moldy Peaches with a hint of continental sophistication, like ‘The Block Party’ by Lisa Left-Eye Lopez if she’d grown up listening to Pavement, like PJ Harvey on the moon, and like Os Mutantes at their most chilled-out."
"The secret of The Dø’s success, apart from the fact that Olivia B. Merilahti is a stupidly gifted, idiosyncratic and sexy singer more talented at imitating vocal ticks than Rory Bremner, is probably the fact that Dan Levy is a (not so) secret jazzer; there’s a musical dexterity and ability running through A Mouthful which makes them stand out from the crowd. (Not that their milieu is exactly laden with contemporaries.) What this means is that every one of the 15 songs here is interesting in one way or another; compositionally, texturally, rhythmically, emotionally, or any one of a myriad of other ways.""A Mouthful is a resolutely pop album, in the old-fashioned sense; eclectic, characterful, audacious, addictive and irresistibly sexy in a sophisticated yet irreverent fashion. I’ve not heard anything like it in a long, long time, which is an enormous shame. Awesome."
Tracklist:
- Playground Hustle - 2:55
- At Last ! - 4:09 *
- On My Shoulders - 5:21 *
- Song for Lovers - 2:24
- The Bridge is Broken - 4:42
- Stay (Just a Little Bit More) - 3:06
- Unissasi Laulelet - 2:19
- Tammie - 3:15 *
- Queen Dot Kong - 3:14
- Coda - 1:57
- Searching Gold - 5:10
- When Was I Last Home? - 3:34
- Travel Light - 4:02
- Aha - 4:19
- In My Box - 1:48
Get it here
