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My Secret Lover

I'll be brief.

Listening to this album, a friend of mine came out with: "These guys rented all the keyboards that Prince used in the 80s".

The review could end here: in fact, if we add, to the aforementioned name, those of a couple of other protagonists (too obvious to mention) of the American Pop Music of the quintessentially crimped decade, the game would virtually be over.

The conditional is required because this album has an issue: it is pleasant, very pleasant.

So pleasant in fact that it drove me to a couple of extra listens, which ended with noticing other quite interesting features, deserving the record a few more words. Nothing transcendental, mind you (it remains derivative to the core... and I have a feeling the authors are quite proud of this), but if listened to with a critical spirit it is impossible not to state that "My Secret Lover", despite its melodies and eighties sounds, is also, if not mainly, a child of the current decade: the noughties (never was a number more fitting to represent a historical period).

What makes this work contemporary and not entirely nostalgic is above all the production: while listening, what makes you tap your foot (if not shake your booty) aren’t dance beats from the 80s, no, no... they are rhythms of people who also grew up dancing to more recent things, too easy to mention Basement Jaxx, Groove Armada, and Faithless.

The rest is done by the absolute catchiness of all the tracks that never concede anything to the overly complex: smooth smooth, simple simple...

In short, an album to listen to in order to cheer up after a hard day at work or if your West Ham took 8 goals in 5 days from Chelsea and Liverpool, and to allow yourself a bit of healthy 4/4 dance beats in front of that damn Maiden poster.

Biographical notes: they are a Danish trio: Thomas Troelsen (vocals, keyboards, sampling, and production), Asger Tarpgaard (guitars), and Tanja Simonsen (vocals). This is their first album, an independent production, gold record in Denmark.

Mo.