Tim: Dario G brought out Hola, his first new album in almost 20 years, a couple of weeks ago and yesterday I finally got round to listening to it. Pleasingly, it’s one of the best albums I’ve heard in recent years – not necessarily because all the tracks are brilliant (though there are a lot of great tracks), but because of the way it’s put together, with a definite beginning, middle and end, rather than a standard “yep, here’s twelve tracks, chuck ’em on there”.
Tom: Right! As streaming increasingly moves towards singles and playlists, there’s not much room left for albums with a theme, let alone the old idea of concept albums. Which makes sense — recorded music has always adjusted to fit the medium it’s on — but I do feel it’s a bit of a shame. I like listening to An Album: and as you say, this is An Album.
Tim: We’ve an intro track, for example, with themes of the title track that we both enjoyed, which then gives way into this.
Tim: Lovely track, isn’t it? A lot of Dario G trademarks – those long backing vocal notes stand out particularly well, and the repetition of a fairly short melody with few lyrics that on some tracks would sound wrong, but here almost come across as almost earnest, just six words to get the message across.
Tom: It is, and I like the track overall. That one vocal line is just a bit too repetitive for me: it’s not like there’s a whole verse in there to run through. Which means I think there isn’t quite enough to sustain this length of track; it needs one, maybe two more layers.
(Side note: wouldn’t that sampled Dream Academy chant from Sunchyme go very nicely over the top of this? I know, almost every musical artist hates their old work being dragged up with the line “ooh, I liked that better”, but there’s the sun connection, and I do feel it needs… something.)
Tim: I don’t know – maybe it might be enhanced (few things in this world can’t be), but I definitely wouldn’t say it needs anything. But ACTUALLY I’m going to go off on a stupid Tim tangent here–
Tom: All right, brace yourselves, everyone.
Tim: –because I’ve just noticed that the ‘Sunrise’ in the title is written as one word, not the two that I’d assumed, which gives it an ever so slightly different meaning. My assumption was ‘You Make The Sun Rise’, a metaphor indicating that Leslie’s target inspires him, really improves his life and makes his day. Whereas ‘Sunrise’, one word, implies that the target is most likely Helios, Greek god of the sun who would pull the sun across the sky every day in a chariot. And it’s a long time since I’ve heard a great dance track that is also dedicated to an ancient god, and to be honest, I’m all for that.
Anyone up for a remix of Zero to Hero?