Search - Jo Mango :: Paperclips & Sand

Paperclips & Sand
Jo Mango
Paperclips & Sand
Genres: International Music, Pop, Rock
 
  •  Track Listings (10) - Disc #1

The Stunning Debut from Glasgow Singer/Songwriter Jo Mango. Jo is Most Comfortably Bracketed Alongside the Likes of Stina Nordenstam and Emiliana Torrini.

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Jo Mango
Title: Paperclips & Sand
Members Wishing: 1
Total Copies: 0
Label: Lo-Five UK
Release Date: 3/13/2006
Album Type: Import
Genres: International Music, Pop, Rock
Style:
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPCs: 5021449084128, 502144908412

Synopsis

Album Details
The Stunning Debut from Glasgow Singer/Songwriter Jo Mango. Jo is Most Comfortably Bracketed Alongside the Likes of Stina Nordenstam and Emiliana Torrini.
 

CD Reviews

Magical and Sweet
S. M. Kim | Los Angeles, CA United States | 03/29/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Magical and sweet is how I would describe the first track ("My Lung") and Jo Mango's voice on "Paperclips and Sand." With bare instrumentation and the captivating vulnerability of a story that's truthfully told, Jo Mango's first album is both idealistic and delicately winsome.



I first heard "Gamer" on the radio and kept mistaking it for Damien Rice. It shares the same sort of raw emotion combined with the artful theatricality of Rice's songs on O. This duet, sung upon the graceful backdrop of strings (guitar, cello, violin), tells the story of an alienation caused by broken trust within the context of a love triangle. I felt that the drama of the piece, highlighted by the lament of the violin, was also nicely mirrored in the subtle use of piano. The piano's lilting notes seem to keep a falling motif, reflective of the relational collapse revealed in the lyrics.



This sort of artistic symmetry is one of the things I appreciated most in the album. In "Waltz With Me," Jo sings the "one-two-three" rhythm at the end of the song, as if pointing to the pre-scripted, yet still enjoyable and worthwhile nature of the dance as what we ultimately long for in love. In another song, the bonus track "Portuguese Skies," Jo, unexpectedly employs her voice to coo, dove-like, while telling of birds "singing in my favourite tree."



My favorite aesthetic mirroring, however, is in "My Lung," featuring only Jo's voice and the kalimba, an instrument which, in that track, sounds just like a music box or Jack-in-the-Box wound to a perfect rhythm. And like a Jack-in-the-Box, there is a magic and innocent discovery to the unfolding of the song. The lyrics celebrate the pledges and possibilities in love in a completely unaffected way; it seems to believe in the promise of love the way a child wonders at and anticipates the final surprise of the Jack-in-the-Box.



Having heard Jo Mango's EP "the antidote" prior to the release of this album, I also waited in hopeful anticipation of "Paperclips and Sand" and was enchanted when it finally arrived.

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