Search - Pooka :: Pooka

Songs of summertime

krista | Ucluelet, BC, Canada | 02/14/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I bought the City Sick EP when it was newly released on a whim in a little record shop in Scarborough, England, and was quietly charmed by this creative duo. Why it took me so long to pick up the debut album I am not sure (I bought it in early 1995), but even more perplexing to me is why I passed by the chance to buy the Graham Robert Wood EP from the same shop a couple of weeks later for the very reasonable price of 50 pence. I've never seen it since, save online, where I view it longingly like a window-shopper.This album, meanwhile, is a beauty, and it contains three of my favourite songs of all time - Dream, Graham Robert Wood, Boomerang. It is a curious, eldritch concoction of delicate shades of sweetness, intricate spells of magic, playful mischief, and contorting, off-kilter or earthbound darkness. The ingredients add up to something resembling, to my thinking, the spirit found in folktales and nursery rhymes, the play on darkness and light, brooding menace and impossibly pure goodness. It makes for intriguing and enchanting company.The artwork on the accompanying booklet is a fine, descriptive portrait of the duo and their music, and enhances the whole. In contrast, the artwork on their follow-up album, "Spinning" feels at odds with their sound.It seems to me a great shame that Pooka never received the recognition they deserved, and spent their time together on the edge of obscurity yet respected by music critics. There are four albums in existence, and a handful of ep's and bits and pieces, but the chances of finding any of them under normal circumstances, aside from this album and (it seems) Shift are lamentably slight. Somebody should gather up all the odds and ends and put out a retrospective compilation from this truly talented duo."