Album Review: Museum of Bellas Artes – Pieces
Do you like Swedes? (Not the root vegetable. No one likes those.) I mean our attractive Nordic cousins. Just like a plot line from Arrested Development, us Brits just keep saying how much we love them, but we never really go all the way. That is to say, we like some Swedish pop, but we never really get beneath the surface. A wise man once said to me that when Swedish music arrives in the UK it gets compared to the holy trinity: Robyn, Lykke Li and The Knife. Well, Museum of Bellas Artes (MBA), are out to show us that there are not just three types of Swedish music.
MBA broke through with their distinctive brand of chirpy, quirky pop that was about as infectious as a fit of the giggles at a laughing gas party. Unsurprisingly, the blogosphere loved it.
Pieces, however, is a departure from their old selves. It’s dark – mixing menacing bass, gossamer textures and an almost gothic theatricality. ‘Bear Cubs’ is one of the album’s occasional injections of the kind of pep found in so many indie disco floor-fillers crafted by Those Dancing Days and other Nordic songsmiths. Oh, and the flutes at the opening of ‘Twine’ do no favours for the Björn Ulvaeus comparisons – but that’s where the resemblance to their countrymen ends.
This longplayer seems evocative of an unnerving ulterior reality. It is immersed in the theatrical melodrama that permeated the 80s and early 90s. Eyeliner and blood red lipstick for all genders; ridiculously ostentatious shirts and shoulder pads; emotionally intense music videos. ‘Twine’ has all the earnest yet experimental hallmarks of a lost Simple Minds single. And, while ‘Relapse’ has a slight reggae feel, it’s more Miami Sound Machine than Gregory Isaacs; and lead single ‘Abyss’ has the sheer theatricality of everyone’s favourite serial open letter writer, Sinead O’Connor.
Speaking of melodrama, Alice Luther’s swooping vocals make you feel as if you are entering the sepulchral world of a Gaston Leroux novel, particularly on the opener ‘Fantasia’. And, JSYK, Luther makes Florence Welsh look like the soloist of a school choir.
In many ways Pieces is a fairly orthodox alternative pop confection. Its willingness to rejoice in sheer 80s clichà makes it a cosy bedfellow to the new Luke Temple record. But the multitude of dance and electro influences which are strewn about the record, from Balearic to trip-hop, creates a kind of electro-pop that is not all bouncing synth and sheer optimism.
Given there is a hefty chunk of post-punk influence thrown in with this heady mix, Pieces still feels like an “indie” record at heart. ‘Swan Boats’ skips along in a jaunty 6/8, with a dose of guitar and melancholic sincerity. At times, MBA’s new sound seems like a hybrid of Neu! and the Raincoats. Best not get carried away with all the genre cross-pollination, though.
It might not be possible to successfully condense the history of indiepop since 1980 into a 35-minute sonic collage, but MBA give it a good shot.
– Katherine Travers
Pieces will be released on 11th November
