BUFFALO BALLET - «SOFT MUSIC»

«SOFT MUSIC»

Release 7 October 2002 (SoundService 71002-2)

Legends have been told about this album even before the first public ear had been hearing one single note. Tom Krailing made himself heard only sporadically after his last album "Electrostreet" (1998). Now a mature studio album has landed on our turntables, with pomp and circumstance and strings and all the rest. The band line-up is a kind of all-star team of the local music scene. Beside Krailing's vocals and guitars are bass-player Jean Zuber (Scuba Divers, Schtärneföifi), drummer Martin Fischer (Eugen, Disco Doom), lead guitarist Tom Etter (Starfish, Züri West) and piano player Hendrix Ackle (Hendrix Cousins, Cyrano) make up Buffalo Ballet and bring you some "Soft Music".

Soft? Like "Soft Machine" (William S. Burroughs), "Soft Parade" (The Doors), and the "Soft Bulletin" (Flaming Lips)? Matching this short list, Soft Music, too, is a summary of pop history and its own past, but " Soft Music" also means elaborate songwriting and clever arrangements. From old-roots pop ("The Good Days Have Gone") to flighty post-rock variations ("Come On In") to throw-rug soul ("Up & High"), the Buffalo Ballet slides through its songs while the bass keeps on throbbing, making your pudding wobble. The backroom bossa nova "Lo Mejor de lo Mejor" tells of a dark Fender-Rhodes electro-piano with shimmy guitar loops underneath the humming ventilator on the ceiling, pursuing Carlos Santana, while the instrumental finishing piece "Twin Tones" comes across as pure soft porn soundtrack (you know: Emmanuelle is standing at the departure gate of a tropical airport and, once again, leaves behind broken men during the rainy season). The combining highlight of this album is without a doubt "Beautiful Day", which takes its music from Guided by Voices and its lyrics from Supertramp ("Take a look at my girlfriend...")

And if we finally may quote something else, it cannot be anybody else than Muhammad Ali, who once described his legendary fighting style with the words that also circumscribe Buffalo Ballet's music: "Dance like a buffalo and sting like a butterfly." Or was it the other way round?