Lo-tech Solutions to Hi-tech Problems
Merchandise’s new album Lo-tech Solutions to Hi-tech Problems has been gathering an embarrassment of adoring reviews.
As the title suggests, the album is the result of duo Brad B Wood and Conrad Astley marrying luscious acoustic loveliness with all the wonders of the electronic age.
And the marriage, as a host of reviewers and radio DJs have already noticed, is certainly a happy one, with tracks taken from it having caught the attention of good people everywhere.
Blowback magazine wrote: “Merchandise make the kind of acoustic electronica that’d be the soundtrack to a summer picnic in Hyde Park, with cute animals frolicking in the sun. A whole album of beautiful music. The sound of pastoral idylls and eternal sunshine.”
Elsewhere, Gill Rickson of SBN Radio commented: “It’s like someone got hold of Rae and Christian and made them cut up a Kings of Convenience album.”
Plenty more of these reviews can be found at www.cityscaperecords.co.uk.
Beautiful Morning for a Bad Day and 14:53 are two of the stand-out tracks which have been turning reviewers’ heads – gorgeous pop songs which see acoustic guitar riffs bouncing out of the speakers alongside lolloping drum loops, pristine piano motifs and Brad’s understated vocals.
Elsewhere the band step up the pace on tracks such as two-and-a-half minute bruiser Sunday Song and psychedelic burn-out Charlie Parker was a Hobo.
The mournful piano balladry of Distil Disappointment and The Last Stand of Pucho Vasquez provide other surprises as does the stark warmth of Winter.
Give Lo-tech Solutions a listen and you will surely agree with Tasty Fanzine that this is “Fantastic pop music.”