Search - Club 8 :: Friend I Once Had

Club 8's genius in bloom

PristineAngie_dot_com | NYC | 12/10/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The album arrives in 1998. (note: some may see the omission of track 8 "Calcutta" This is a 30 second instrumental segue that I believe is on alternate version of the album.) This album has the added distinction of Johan Angergård not singing in any of the tracks. When the two duet, it's actually quite sweet. I do miss that.



Club 8's second album begins exactly where 1996's Nouvelle left off: vibraphone, Smiths-like broken chords (notes of a chord individually played in sequence), mixed with a delicate sense of doubt that Karolina Komstedt expresses so well.



"All I can do" is cool, swinging comfortably in its textbook like issuance of advice in the chorus:



Be patient, try harder

I'll help you in my own way

See clearer, be happy.



"Someday" follows, and it's the first appearance of the heavily reverberating vocals that will come to cloth Komstedt's voice so well in later recordings. Fans of the Housemartins will instantly recognize Club 8's roots.



"I wish you'd stay" opens with a quote from the movie Blade Runner's soundtrack but soon introduces more contemporary programmed drum sounds.



"The end of the affair" starts very reminiscent of the Smiths, but soon returns to familiar Club 8 territory.



"Summer Rain" employs the jungle, drums & bass samples heard so often back in the day.



"Better Days" is one of the highlights of the album. Confessional, vulnerably honest, and uncertain. Of course, as a listener and songwriter, I could not help but wonder if these were truly Johan Angergård's thoughts (as a lyricists), what he imagines his bandmate thinking, or perhaps, a product of their conversations. Something we may never learn.



Track 12 Missing You opens an entire universe into Club 8. It's dance music! Not the trendy clubby deep house or progressive tribal (although there's nothing wrong with those), but EURODANCE. You know: happy major chords, upbeat rhythms, handclaps. Succinctly: Disco that is not afraid to be called disco.



Of course, being Club 8, the topic of this happy dance song is being unlucky and being unhappy.



A gorgeously produced mid tempo pop song "My heart won't break" is next.



Several versions of Missing You and one remix of "My Heart..." follow, with the "making love to a machine mix" being experimental, trippy, and dubby, it's amazing how far a band can go in the span of one album.



"The friend I once had" closes the album. Sentimental, honest (as usual) and just a touch of sadness, a quality of the Brazilian bossa nova masters that Club 8 has so successfully distilled into their pop creations."