HUSKY RESCUE – COUNTRY FALLS (CATSKILLS)
October 14th, 2004 by freddie96
One hallmark of great pop music is that it can withstand being played on crappy equipment at crappy volumes. That’s why Heaven 17 all those years ago used tiny speakers for mixing, wanting to simulate the conditions in which most of their fans would experience their music.
So when I was lying in bed the other morning listening to Husky Rescue on some unspeakably tinny mini-speakers, I realised they’ve gone and made a terrific pop album. It’s perfectly sized – eleven songs long – and it sounds great wherever you happen to play it. Needless to say, the band hailing from Helsinki and the label being Catskills, this is a beautifully produced record, but it’s the playful, relaxed mood you notice first.
Maybe it’s a Nordic thing, but there’s a wonderful loopiness to ‘Country Falls’ in which anything goes. A dreamy, romantic track like ‘My World’ is offset by a combination of lap steel guitar, flute and whistling that stays just this side of pastiche (some shades of Air here). Indeed, the whole album is an exercise in that skittish contemporary style that dare not speak its name: flitting between genres, moods and epochs, Husky Rescue refuse to reveal anything at all about who they ‘really’ are.
This is not to say they’re as flippant as the Scissor Sisters, say. While ‘Gasoline Girl’ and ‘Summertime Cowboy’ are every bit as enjoyably trashy as they sound, there’s great depth in a tune like ‘New Light of Tomorrow’, which for me will always be associated with the early days of the Iraq war when it was first recorded. ‘Sunset Drive’, meanwhile, takes bleeps, bass and mellow beats and then works them up into a frenzy worthy of Ralph Myerz.
It’s hard stuff to describe, but suffice to say it’s influenced by everything going: film soundtracks (just check the glorious ‘Mean Street’), bossa nova, 70s prog rock, country, electronica, you name it. Either way, it’s a really lovely record that deserves to be a huge crossover hit.
Freddie B
Husky Rescue’s ‘Country Falls’ is out now on Catskills Records
