Osama "Sam" Shalabi's new full-length album with his group Shalabi Effect is a bit of a departure from recent solo outings, which focused on improvisation and textured electronic instrumentals. The musicians assisting Shalabi on Pink Abyss are predictably drawn from the ranks of Montreal musical collectives and supergroups such as gy!be, Do May Say Think, Set Fire To Flames and Broken Social Scene.
Personally, I don't care if I never hear another pompous album of under-written, overblown mediocrity from these unshaven, ponytailed bores. But Sam Shalabi has always been a separate proposition from the unappetizing uniformity of much of the Montreal scene, his material showing a bit more personality and a greater sphere of influence, incorporating psychedelic rock and ethnic textures into his dark, jazz-inflected music. Pink Abyss is billed as Shalabi Effect's first pop album, a claim which doesn't really stick, but the retro-baroque Curt Boettcher stylings of "Blue Sunshine" come very close, even if it is eventually upstaged by a squall of gurgling hashish-filtered electronics. The album's highlight comes early, the sexy jazz of "Bright Guilty World," an adaptation of "Bali Hai" from South Pacific, which changes the lyrics into an indictment of the imperialist policies of George W. Bush. The silky vocals of guest Elizabeth Anka Vajagic evoke the sultry smolder of Sara Vaughan and the exotic intrigue of Yma Sumac, though I find it rather distressing that the liner notes give no indication that the track is a cover of a classic Rogers and Hammerstein song. "Iron and Blood" is a slowly simmering folk-improv jam, which incorporates tabla and a beautifully anthemic guitar solo. It's in the region of bands like Sunburned Hand of the Man, but it's better produced and pulled off with a lot more panache. Successive tracks use the same instrumentation and techniques, but are able to achieve varied results which mostly succeed. "Kinder Surprise" takes a cue from pastoral psychedelic acts like Boards of Canada, with its pacific washes of analog synthesizer and samples of frolicking children. It's not very original, but it makes for a gentle coda to a quietly charming and accomplished album.
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