Studio Alchemy

Andy Kim Rock Me Gently
Tommy Sparks Miracle
Tommy Sparks Miracle (Grum Remix)

Andy Kim, the pride of Montreal's Little Lebanon*, co-wrote the Archies' Sugar Sugar, cementing his legacy in the annals of pop music. Not content to bask in the glory of a pitch-perfect pop music concoction, he shot to number one on the charts with 1974's Rock Me Gently, a Neil Diamond-ish pop ditty that I've got a soft spot for.

Tommy Sparks, a Swedish song-writer, is familiar to anybody with a TV, as being responsible for the song She's Got Me Dancing, currently featured in an Apple iPhone television spot. The song's actually a two-headed monster - one, the guitar line cribbed from The Ohio Player's Love Rollercoaster, and the other the bastardized over-produced post-punk shimmy and shake of Franz Ferdinand. But, like Chairlift, don't hold that against him.

Let's leave Tommy's paycheque alone, and discuss a better song - Miracle. Being Swedish, Tommy Sparks is well-versed in studio alchemy - the myriad of tricks and techniques from which pure pop gold is made. In this case, it's the strummed acoustic guitar over-top a traditional rock band set-up. (Could this explain a weakness for OMC's How Bizarre?) The Embassy, also Swedish, are perfect masters of this trick, but I also think it was employed quite handily (and best) by Tony Visconti in his production work in the 70's with David Bowie and T. Rex.

* There's no Little Lebanon.

Phil Lynott sounds like he has a cold

Taken By Trees Watch the Waves
The Crêpes What Else?

Eminently tasteful music is always in great danger of becoming the soundtrack to your next car shopping experience, or given the staggering decline of the auto industry, your next brush with an iPod commercial on a transit shelter. Chairlift's Bruises* or the career of Feist, for example. Give me a softly strummed guitar, a beat you can clap along to, and a woman with a voice that shifts between tender and listless depending on the listener's mood, match that with an animated silhouette dancing on a picnic bench and we've got a campaign.

Victoria Bergsman had already proven her music licensing credentials, having sang on Peter, Bjorn & John's Young Folks, as well as with The Concretes, so felt that rather than establishing her own brand of fair trade coffee, she'd make some more music. With production duties handled by Dan Lissvik of Studio, we have the second album from her solo project, Taken By Trees' East of Eden, recorded in Pakistan and heavily referencing Sufi music, trance states and maybe even a John Steinbeck novel.

Yes, of course there's a National Geographic short film about her "journey." The album will be released by Rough Trade on September 7th.

Dan Lissvik has also recently paired up with Fredrik Lindson (of The Embassy) under the moniker The Crêpes to release a super-limited LP (& much more available mp3/CD release) called What Else? that's a soft and subtle homage to dusk, summer pop & (I'm assuming) the Traveling Wilburys.

Chairlift Bruises (Juan MacLean Remix)

Speaking of iPod commercials, here's the Juan MacLean remix, which only becomes recognizable at about 3 minutes in, and is far superior to the frightening 8-bit work-over that Passion Pit treats it to.