“Let’s bring this moment alive”, Damian Lazarus swoons over a lullaby piano and understated Beatlesque orchestration during the early section of ‘Moment’. The 3/4 jauntiness then turns darker, before the timing switches to a pulsing 4/4 minimalism. In a 9 minute exploration of sweet emotion, dark and light timbres and pop melodicism, Lazarus lays the foundation for Smoke The Monster Out and explores them for the remaining 40 minutes.
Sometimes it comes off a bit lame. ‘Memory Box’ is an otherwise nice shuffling electro hampered by silly industrial style vocal techniques. ‘King Of Fools’ is 45 throwaway seconds that could have been done without. And ‘Bloop Bleep’ is a proper comedy track made of big band jazz samples with electronic trimmings, all of which is actually quite good, but seems rather incongruous in the context of this particular album. Fortunately, the bulk of the album steers clearer of affectation and is much more successful.
Guest female vocalists play a big part in the sound of the successful bulk of the album, with voices swinging from blues siren to little girl lost and all points between. I had originally thought it was the work of a single singer. For example, in ‘Come And Play’ duetting with herself to great effect or on ‘Spinnin’, playing Martine to Lazarus’ Tricky styled production. Then, a little research pointed out the fact that the female vocals are supplied by twin sisters, Miriam and Johanna Berhan, who are Sweden’s Taxi Taxi. This explains the intertwining beauty of the vocals and sent me back to listen even more closely. Lazarus himself sounds much better when singing in his cracked-indie warble such as the disco-tinged ‘Neverending’ or the truly uplifting album closer, ‘After Rave Delight’. And then there are the instrumental tracks such as the moodshifting ‘Lullabies’ or the string laden interlude of ‘Cold Lizards’, which stand well on their own as production displays.
There’s much to like about Smoke The Monster Out. Lazarus flips around genres, holding them all together with a consistent electronic collection of timbres. When he slips into humour, he comes out sounding much poorer but, aside from these few astray moments, is able to deliver a worthwhile album.
Adrian Elmer
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