MONTJUIC – Things Must Change – review – downtempo throwback

MONTJUIC – Things Must Change – review
lastnghtfromglasgow

Oddly enough, I’ve never been. Probably as my time in Barcelona involved scrabbling over rooftops. Repairing them, that is. But I never went to Montjuic. So Montjuic has come to me.

Sadly, this Montjuic is an electro-acoustic duo specialising in the kind of downtempo things that would have been used over the closing credits of a USA teen drama, in the nineties, when something very bad has happened. You know, Brittany forgot to take her hair straighteners to summer camp, and now Sabrina is just mocking here, relentlessly, every time Brad is within earshot. And Brad is just so dreamy.

It’s not that it’s bad. It’s just, that. So who be they? Well, it’s James Hackett (The Orchids) and Ian Carmichael (One Dove). Well, that latter one explains a lot. When did they have their hit? 1993. There you go. It’s definitely more that, than it is indie-pop, which is what The Orchids did. Now that I’ve accessed the internet, I can tell you that the “this became a subconscious foundation of our writing, and a lot of these songs are about change; the things we want to change (the world, the weather, the whole music business) to the things we don’t (relationships, happiness, the people we love). But no matter what, things must change”. Change, then.

Now you know. There are 14 tracks here which have been facilitated by the previously mentioned internet, as Carmichael is based in Barcelona whilst Hackett and is in Glasgow. I did some lovely tiling on El Palacio de la Música Catalana, if I say so myself. Where was I? Oh, yes, 14 tracks. That’s a lot. And even on repeat listens, I had to keep the sleeve close to hand, so I could tell which song was which. I suppose you could say it’s a mood piece, and that song titles are a traditionalist throwback to Empire de-secession, which negate the impact of the moment. But.

After very, very careful monitoring of the situation, I reckon that the best songs on offer are ‘In Love With The World’ and ‘Waiting’. They’ve got a modicum of a hook to them. Didn’t need a stopwatch to work out which ones they were. In the olden days, the whole album would have described as ethereal, before that word was struck off the Uncut/Mojo approved register. And, to its credit, late at night, I had no urge to remove it from the turntable before each side reached its natural conclusion.

It’s easy listening, extremis. Which has its place.