
Review: The Soap Company – Amyl Nights
Published on April 29th, 2013 | Jonny Abrams
Tony SoapCo is not just the most rabid consumer and reliable prescriber of new music we’ve ever come across; he is also now onto his third full album in as many years as the chief operator and producer of revolving cast recording project The Soap Company. Last year’s Big Bang went down a treat, and we’re delighted to report that Amyl Nights more than keeps up its end of the bargain. It’s an LP constructed so as to take you on a journey, just like in pre-shuffle times, and it does so in the most satisfying way: by somehow making eclectic styles flow seamlessly into each other.
“The Deaf Doorman” begins with nightclub chatter and a muffled, ‘behind closed doors’ four-step beat. The doors are then opened for three girls on The Soap Company’s guestlist and from thereon in we are to experience their euphoric, psychedelic all-nighter vicariously through them. The ensuing “The Red Light” reminds of Soul Mekanik, Kelvin Andrews and Daniel Spencer’s project after Blueboy and Sound 5: it’s got sleek, sultry spoken word, scrumptiously synaesthetic synthery dancing like lights around it, and it welcomes on board The Soap Company’s signature lush waves of ambient pads.
This slides beautifully into the title track, with its dissonant strings of velvet, probing bass line and delightfully sticky rhythm section, which in turn is followed by the jazzy, pupil-dilating shuffle of “Congo Pixel”. Keys glow, guitar wigs out, and soothing female voices chatter away on the outskirts as if you were on some exquisitely funky charter flight. Ace, ace and thrice ace.
“Your Love Surrounds My Heart With Sound” plies its chattering rhythm section with lazer gun pops, peels of wailing lead guitar and triumphant fanfare keys, building up an entrancing head of steam before melting away into wibbly goodness; we then get an interlude in the form of a psychedelically rendered phone conversation niftily titled “Bathroom Break”, before “Windows” treats us to bang-on wibble-funk with a skip in its stride, a lysergic groove and a lovely, measured vocal.
A playful sort of cross between Blur and Saint Etienne, “The A-Z of Clubbing” does exactly what it says on the tin then segues expertly into “My Beautiful City”, the most menacing track on the album and quite possibly its best. It’s a brilliant track, becoming the rush of a raving experience and making way for “Morning on the Beach” to bring Amyl Nights to its logical conclusion. Another triumph for Tony SoapCo and vindication of all his hard work, another aural treat for the rest of us. Roll on the next one!
Rocksucker says: Four and a Half Quails out of Five!
Amyl Nights will be released on 6th May through Space Station Disco. You can hear Tony SoapCo spinning tunes on Croydon Radio on a regular basis. For more information, please click here to visit The Soap Company’s official website.
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