Sweet Baboo – Hello Wave

The penultimate track on this, Sweet Baboo’s second album, is entitled ‘Darlin’ If you Think My Songs Are Fun, Then Darlin’ You Are Wrong’. And - despite potentially serving as an open goal-invitation for reviewer snark ”“ this title, and indeed the lyrical content of said song, is better taken as a handy reminder or primer for the casual listener. For indeed, despite the ostensible melodiousness and ramshackle charm of a large part of this collection, there is indeed quite a dark and downbeat seam that also runs through it.‘If I’m Still In Love When I Get Back Home From Travelling (America)’ starts the album off in reasonably upbeat fashion, raising a smile with the perky jaunty tune and little mid-song jokes about “little stories that never really happened”, yet already references to dead pet rabbits, to be found “at the gates of hell” are introduced. This has the pleasing effect, sustained through the entire course of the album, of meaning that one is never, quite, sure of the real intent, meaning and seriousness (or otherwise) of what is being discussed: are these all semi-surrealist flights of fancy, words strung together because they sound interesting; or do they contain some ultimate profound meanings? Lyrics that I found pretty much incomprehensible included “I’ll set the boot-camp at an angle / Of one hundred degrees” from ‘Let’s Go To Town’ and ‘I’ve got my peas in a little smallhold / C’mon peas, split, go” (‘How I’d Live My Life a.k.a. The Bumblebee Song’); whereas the meaning and intention seem much more straightforward on tracks like ‘If I’m Still In Love”¦’ and ‘Darlin’ If You Think My Songs Are Fun”¦’. Don’t get me wrong, though. This is one of the key factors that give Sweet Baboo their (his) charm, and makes this album a contender for the “This Year’s Wonky Gem” award.Further dark content, to support the “not-fun” assertion, can be found in ‘Let’s Go To Town’’s talk of battling demons; in ‘Little Bernadette’ where we are told that “death has a hold”; in Hello Bullfrog (“I make my own grave out of leaves”); and on the closing track ‘Tim’s Song’, with it’s plaintive claim that “I’ve had troubles in my life” and “I’m destined to die here”. There is also a distinctly religious or at least spiritual flavour to several of the tracks, the most overt references being found in ‘Tim’s Song’ (“No matter what you throw at me / God built a home for me”) and ‘In The Night Sky (I Hear Him Calling Me)’ (although it is not altogether clear whether the “him” referred to is God or a demon/Satan), but also the Amazing Grace/hymn-like feel to ‘Let’s Go To Town’ and the celestial backing choral voices on the beautiful, touching ‘Little Bernadette’. Then, just when it all seems dead profound and, y’know, deep, maaan, there are also the numerous references to animals (rabbits, pigeons, bumblebees, bullfrogs), which are mostly just kind of childlike and fun.Lots of finger-picked and acoustic guitar is used, with a minimum of anything very much more elaborate in the way of instrumentation, except for the slightly-more-musically-adventurous ‘Weak As In Good’ which deploys queasy synth noises, and waits for half the track before bringing in the vocal, and the enjoyable instrumental ‘It’s Three, Let’s Go’, one of the three standout tracks (the other two being ‘If I’m Still In Love”¦’ and ‘Little Bernadette’). Stephen Black (who pretty much is Sweet Baboo) has a likeable voice, that has that quality of sounding as if he is speaking directly to you, the listener, as he sings. The whole album also has a freshness in feel probably partly down to the fact that it was recorded pretty much ‘as live’ in a short and seemingly enjoyably productive series of sessions.So, not fun? Well, perhaps in places not, but I would suggest that this collection of songs is in fact something rather more satisfying: individual, genuinely quirky, full of originality and confusingly, pleasingly, open to a range of interpretations. 75%Sweet Baboo on Myspace