{"id":467,"date":"2011-03-15T05:24:41","date_gmt":"2011-03-15T10:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=467"},"modified":"2011-03-15T05:24:41","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T10:24:41","slug":"album-review-cornershop-the-double-o-groove-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/03\/15\/album-review-cornershop-the-double-o-groove-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Cornershop – Cornershop and the Double-O Groove Of"},"content":{"rendered":"

To the listener uninitiated and unfamiliar with Cornershop<\/strong>\u2019s approach, the group\u2019s melding of traditional Punjabi folk and modern breakbeats, baroque pop and plain old pop might seem a bizarre hybrid. The truth is, more often than not the combinations work. The unresolved-preposition-titled 2011 album Cornershop and the Double-O Groove Of<\/em> features the female vocals of Bubbley Kaur<\/strong>. She sings strictly in a Punjabi dialect while Tjinder Singh<\/strong> and Benedict Ayres<\/strong> craft a kinetic and sympathetic groove undercurrent.<\/p>\n

Bubbley\u2019s phrasing is rooted in her native language, yet it fits well into the western pop concoctions that, er, bubble under her. At times \u2013 for example, on the 2004 single \u201cTopknot,\u201d collected on this album of mostly new material — the vocal-and-pop combo resembles something one might hear toward the end of a Bollywood film. Even then, there\u2019s a modern vibe that offers a pleasing intertwining of traditional Indian instrumentation (or, more likely, samples thereof) with modern pop instrumentation and a decidedly dance-oriented beat.<\/p>\n

Other times — such as on \u201cThe Biro Pen,\u201d the Cornershop groove is closer to the sort of thing one might find on a Pizzicato Five<\/strong> album, with its jazzy, almost Steely Dan<\/strong>-like piano chording. The clanging percussion and rubbery bass groove of \u201cSupercomputed\u201d has a dancefloor vibe, but then so do all ten tracks on the disc. The brass of \u201cOnce There Was a Wintertime\u201d calls to mind that particularly twee sort of late 60s British lite-psych, but weds it to a stuttering, modern drum pattern.<\/p>\n

A one-note sitar lick is the basis of \u201cDouble Digit,\u201d but the stop-start percussion and a catchy bass riff hold it together and move it forward. The album is a departure from earlier Cornershop material in that Singh doesn\u2019t take any of the vocals, and there\u2019s nary a word of English to be found in the lyrics. And the Indian influence is central to the songs in a way merely hinted at on earlier releases. Yet there\u2019s enough of a western feel to the arrangements to provide a touchstone for \u2013 to mix metaphors \u2013 open-minded American ears. The acoustic guitar work on \u201cDon\u2019t Shake It\u201d answers the question \u201cWhat would it sound like if James Taylor<\/strong> hooked up with a dance band?\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re up for something a bit different, a combination of the familiar and exotic all delivered with fun and style, then Cornershop and the Double-O Groove Of<\/em> may be just the ticket.<\/p>\n

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To the listener uninitiated and unfamiliar with Cornershop\u2019s approach, the group\u2019s melding of traditional Punjabi folk and modern breakbeats, baroque pop and plain old pop might seem a bizarre hybrid. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}