Moloko
Statues

THE REVIEW

Diving into memories. Letting oneself seep through the terrifying and crashing waves of the fractured past.
There is a beautiful woman, no, a gorgeous one, and if she isn't gorgeous, she has surprising charisma. She looks at me from afar with her bastard doe eyes and a marvelous voice, like a jazz siren able to chain you to the chair, with no hope of escape. You see her strutting in the kitsch rhythms she has dragged along, in two solo albums that aren't exactly exceptional, you see her hesitating in front of the retro blunders that look chic but don't scratch the surface. You see her flaunting everything with her voice, while the haunting and threatening shadow of the past sucks at her neck.

The Moloko. God bless, the Moloko.
One of the most beautiful and underrated musical acts of the electro-jazz-trip hop scene of the late '90s and early '2000s. Remembered only for a couple of smashing singles like a crackling "Sing It Back" and a wonderfully elegant "The Time Is Now", one of the best ways to greet the new millennium that was then awaited with dancing lighters. And in 2003 they bid farewell, unfortunately, to their short but certainly impactful career. Not that they invented much, but they added stardust to a genre that by then seemed all too saturated. And there was no better farewell than "Statues", an album of disarming beauty, which went almost unnoticed compared to the previous ones. And that's a pity, because while the previous albums flowed with an often abysmal number of songs, "Statues", in just ten tracks, tells you the universe.

Homogeneous but never repetitive. Unintentionally chic for an elegance that never feels forced, it remains etched at different moments. Because you really have to find them, digging through piles of crap, such surprisingly sensual records that in its opening, it slaps you with one of the greatest pop masterpieces of the last ten years: a fabulous, colossal "Familiar Feeling", almost 7 minutes of continuous vocal ellipses and unperturbed whirlwinds of rhythms and violins, opening with two heavenly minutes of pure, breathless rhythm, only to completely annihilate the dance oasis in what is an original and irresistible electro swing impossible to erase. And although the beginning is the peak of an album that continues to bloom like a rose, track by track, the other pieces also manage to burrow into the listener's ears. Even powerful tracks like the pumped-up "Forever More", which in another seven minutes condenses the more powerful and danceable Moloko sound into a more elegant and sumptuous attire, meticulously crafted but neither ambitious nor self-indulgent: the easy chorus, the movements, the beats stitched in every detail, the trembling flow of the voice... everything becomes paradoxically intimate and vital, a new apéiron. 

The same sensation is felt in the splendid title track, a jazz ballad that manages to unite warm and cold in a whirl of spiritual emotions, transforming with each note until the calm and sweet chorus wraps around us, becoming part of the body itself. Intimate and sexy is also "Blow By Blow", poignant but not heartbreaking, keeps its jazzy line and vocal interweaves, becoming a splendid and simple flower to gift to someone you love.

"Statues" is one of those albums that needs to be experienced in every moment, that requires digging deep for a better understanding. Not because it's difficult to listen to, on the contrary, but because it consists of a magnificent network of primordial sensations, sighs and small, great musical ideas waiting to be discovered, where even small tracks like "The Only Ones" hide an immortal soul and where simplicity and complexity combine, giving life to jazz finds like the enchanting and engaging "I Want You".

An album that is the swan song of one of the most beautiful realities of the last decade.

If only one found the courage to rediscover it...