I’m going to come out and say it straight – this isn’t an album that will gratify you immediately. This isn’t sugar coated pop that will give you a short hit then fade away. This is an album that requires time and attention. This is more like 70% dark chocolate, something to be savoured and take your time over. An album that should be listened too wearing a smoking jacket and drinking good scotch. Ok, so I made the last bit up, but you get my point.
This is an album steeped in nostalgia, the slow americana influenced guitar and precise – almost woozy rhythms taking me back to my university days listening to slow, jazz infused drum and bass, imagining a world that could have been – or could be.
Air Con Eden helps to paint an alternate reality – a beautiful, sad place with an undercurrent of something more sinister. This is a world where I could imagine Steven King’s Gunslinger roaming, an alternate reality inexplicably linked to ours, yet slowly turning to memories and dust. A world that could have been.
At times this album reminded be of Broken Bells album – After the Disco. Although the tone is totally different, themes of looking back and thinking about what could have been, a weary traveller wondering about what could have been if only a different step was taken.
Of course, this is what I took away from the album. Maybe that’s what Jacob Read intended, maybe not. But that’s the good thing about great art – it stirs emotion, it evokes thoughts relevant to the observer (or listener in this case) and what I take away from it could be totally different to you, and will divide opinion.
Go listen, i’d love to hear your thoughts on the album and what it means to you.
