lullatone

Songs That Spin In Circles

Most recording artists would probably regard it as a bad thing for their audience to be sent to sleep by their music, but not so with Yoshimi and Shawn James Seymour, who have designed his disc for maximum soporific value. Lullatone, you had me at 'hello'. This particular Boomkat correspondent has never really got on with the desperately twee universe inhabited by cutesy, kiddietronica merchants Lullatone, and their latest enterprise is hardly likely to win me over. Equally though, Songs That Spin In Cycles probably delivers precisely what the duo's existing fanbase wants from their music, so in a sense, everyone's a winner. This series of lullabies - composed for their newborn son - introduces itself with 'A Mobile Over Your Head', a disarmingly agreeable constellation of deep, resonant chimes and twinkling bells. It's actually rather nice and liable to make you feel a bit warm and squidgy if you're so inclined, but altogether more cloying is the cute-core bossa-pop of the next track, which (sort of / probably / not really) references Wes Bentley's slap-able performance in American Beauty. It's called 'A Plastic Bag In The Wind' ("Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world... I feel like I can't take it." etc, etc....), which underlines a missed opportunity for the band - clearly they should have combined those first two song titles to create the ultimate Lullatone track: 'A Plastic Bag Over Your Head'. In truth, this is far better than I'm letting on. It irks me to say so but on its own terms this album is a raging success, and might reasonably be thought of as a modern-day equivalent to Raymond Scott's Soothing Sounds For Babies. Sweet dreams, kids...