Gomo
Best Of

They're just little songs, but in the end, lightness is, in its own way, an art.
Paulo Gouveia, known as Gomo, seems to understand this well, as the title of his debut album, “Best Of Gomo”, suggests that he doesn’t want to take himself too seriously. To be precise, this debut album by the Portuguese artist is actually a collection of tracks. Songs with which he has been a hit in his homeland since 2001. The commendable Santoria and Homesleep (a label we already owe Yuppie Flu and Julie’s Haircut) are now trying to export this phenomenon of the independent scene beyond Portugal's borders.

It might be worthwhile to immediately dismiss the misplaced comparisons that have sometimes been drawn for this musician. Beck or Belle & Sebastian are in another league. Gomo, for his part, just makes music without overdoing it; guitars, keyboards, bass, drums. The height of electronics is the dear old drum machine.
The result is quite varied and, admittedly, extraordinarily catchy.
The album opens with the two “hits”, “Feeling Alive” and “I Wonder” whose very entertaining music videos are perhaps more popular than the songs themselves (if you missed them, you'll find them on YouTube). If the first is pure danceable pop for a birthday party (and what's wrong with that?), the second leaves a mark and resembles some tracks from Blur's golden period.
But this is just the appetizer because then Gomo will surprise you with the whispered melancholy of “Santa’s Depression”, then move on to playful ultra-catchy rhymes like “Proud to Be Bald”, then dive into full ’80s new wave with “November 6th”, and close with a sweet alt-folk style ballad, “You Might Ask”, which sounds like listening to Yo La Tengo.
In short, a bit of everything. There are debatable moments as well, like when in “Army Slave” he mimics early Beck, which is fleeting. But even the blemishes will make you find this album endearing.

And in the end, even though your iPod library is a compendium of the greatest masterpieces of contemporary music, Gomo will appear with several entries in the most-played playlist, leaving Radiohead and Björk with none. How is it possible? After all, you haven't listened to it that often. Or have you?