Sofa Surfers
Cargo

It might seem like the usual cliché: simple style but with great impact, as direct as a punch to the stomach. "Cargo" (1999) is the second album by Sofa Surfers, the toughest of a project that was quite intense at its outset.

You see because, from a technical perspective, there isn't an overwhelming variety of sounds or ideas in this release, elements that will become more prominent in later albums and eventually essential in the very recent "Blindside." All tracks seem to revolve around those same two/three elements, all seem to resemble each other, almost all are wrapped in the same sound bank, as if it were an endless suite. But the beauty lies precisely in this detail, for a very simple reason: Each track rocks. -> Cargo rocks. 

Two/three elements, as mentioned. What does it consist of?

1 Intense low frequencies with frenetic and pounding basslines.
2 Robust beats, very technical as well.
3 Dub. Dub. And more DUB!

Here it is "Cargo," a limited concept but exploited to 100%. Urban guerrilla atmospheres, psychedelic sound, anxiety-inducing, black as pitch. Certainly not the gentle and reassuring neo-soul experimented with later, here it's all about the punch. Some sporadic ragga vocal, some upstrokes from a Jamaican dub, delays everywhere... but there's a small detail: the Sofas operate in Vienna and they do nothing to hide it. The sound is that of smoky industrial metropolises, the "infamous" Northern European sound!

Evocative packaging: a container, sheet metal, scaffolding, the "cargo" with the track titles written on it... you put it on, and before you can even verify how everything is perfectly in line with the album's sound, it kicks off at full speed. No ambient intros, helicopters, skits, or other frills, immediately power with "Container" (a background rich in noise) and "Beans and Rice" (hallucinatory): in an instant, fearsome breaks, dirty and abrasive riffs, claustrophobic sound. "The Lower Rider" (soul elements begin to appear), "I Asked for Water" (spectacular bass line), "Latal In Tampere" (suffocating dark piece) are the best moments: slow tempos/fast tempos, soft beats/intense beats, silence/woofer-bursting moments alternate majestically. And still ragga tricks ("Sweat", "Long Bone" beautiful beat), jazz fusion bombardments ("If It Were Not for You", it's like hearing Philli Joe on drums, "Yoyogi Dehara"), very calm melodies, almost chill out, if it weren't for the usual deafening rhythm section ("Raffinerie", "Guns and Bombs and Knives" respectively more canonical breakbeat and dub).

The Viennese collective will continue at a high level, releasing a series of very valid albums, changing the "formula" several times. For example, the soul and rap contaminations of Encounters are very appreciable, but it is undoubtedly with "Cargo" that they bring out the best of their repertoire. Absolutely not to be missed!