Being familiar with some of his work (basically the hit songs) I had no idea of the legacy this brilliant man has left behind. To my complete surprise this (ridiculously low priced) box set opened a new musical world before my ears and from the very first listening I have felt madly and hopelessly in love with Serge Gainsbourg's music. The quality of these recordings is matched by the quality of sound. The remastering is top notch and superior to most digital transfers heard today. I only wish this incredible set had been released on vinyl as well.
During the last ice age glaciers slowly carved away the landscape creating mineral rich sediment. For hundreds of thousands of years melt water carried this fine-grained sediment downstream to parts of North America. In some areas strong winds carried this sediment and deposited it forming a network of ridges and dunes. These deposits of loose silty wind-blown, or aeolian, sediment are called Loess. Flash forward to the present, and the duo of Clay Emerson and Ian Pullman may seem to have gone the way of the glaciers and all but disappeared. Instead, their signature loose aural silt has been slowly and methodically accumulating and now makes up their new full-length Pocosin. Others may have no point of reference and Pocosin is a welcome introduction to the sound of Loess; in a mere blink of an eye from when they began.
Rewind back to Gateshead in 2008 - the producer Smoove is round his friend and keyboard player - Mike Porter's house. Together they are working on tracks for his project and all of a sudden they hear a heavenly voice from the neighbour. Transfixed by the vocals that are caressing their ears they go and investigate to find a youthful John Turrell doing his thing at a practice with a local band he played with when he wasn't teaching carpentry at the local college. Together they woo him with their Geordie charms and the initial line up of 'Smoove & Turrell' is born. The group instantly gel and soon after have penned the killer track 'I Can't Give You Up'…