With the single, The Gift, still ringing entrancingly in ears we thought we should catch up with the album it comes from and lures attention to. Sustain The Illusion is the second album from Sweet Gum Tree, the solo project of French singer songwriter/musician Arno Sojo and a release which simply captivates from start to finish with melodic beauty and emotively provocative exploration.
After the collaborative creation of its acclaimed predecessor three years ago, The Snakes You Charm & The Wolves You Tame, a release featuring among a few Isobel Campbell of Belle & Sebastian, Earl Harvin from the Tindersticks, and The Church’s Marty Willson-Piper, Sojo has created and recorded Sustain The Illusion pretty much on his own with producer David Odlum and musicians Romy and Lise Douylliez adding the only additional contributions. The result is a release which manages to feel even more intimate than its heart bred predecessor while embracing a richer texture and array of sound and enterprise.
Sustain The Illusion opens with the atmospheric Breaking The Bond, electronic beats leading in the inviting melodic coaxing of a lone guitar as colder winds whistle around them. Sojo’s tones soon join the blossoming reflection, the emotion of his voice and words stirring greater intensity in the suggestive sounds. It is energy though which sublimely ebbs and flows as the instinctive beauty of his music seduces the senses, at times with melancholic elegance.
The following Twinkle has a livelier gait, its electronic shimmer and melodic rock guitar stroll as transfixing as the rhythmic dance and vocal adventure within them. As the track gently explodes around ears and imagination certain essences remind of bands such as Slug Comparison and Sigur Rós before Someday hugs thoughts with its confidential emotions and sonic tension. As the song before, it is seriously mesmeric, deeply immersing the listener in its raw heart and emotional drama further expressed through the impressing tones of Sojo.
The infectious swing of Rollercoaster firmly entices next, its boisterous energies and enterprise pure magnetism infesting body and spirit. It is pop infused rock at its best and quite bewitching as too is successor Fairweather Faith, a folk spiced croon with the most delicious melody and a compelling XTC like air. It is an exquisitely layered seduction graced by worldly spices which absorbs attention and ardour like a sponge.
An earthy bass opens up Stars Align, its flirtatious nature matched in vocal and melody as the song evolves into a Nine Inch Nails meets The The like treat. Its eventful minimalistic air and Sojo’s vocal prowess alone stokes pure pleasure which angelic harmonies and an array of sounds and imaginative twists simply accentuates in the album’s best track.
The equally outstanding Guilt Trip similarly has something of Matt Johnson’s band to it, a touch of The Pineapple Thief too as its mix of eighties synth pop and post punk nurtured rock captivates with increasing dexterity. It is another beacon of songwriting and craft within the album taken to a greater plateau by Sojo’s passion and energy.
As the calmer but darker emotional waters of Clean Slate and Burn Your Icons, a track merging Cure-esque rhythms and shadows with jazzier progressive rock adventure, surround ears on the way to seducing the psyche Sustain The Illusion only strengthens its hold, squeezing tighter with recent single The Gift. The track caresses the senses with its golden melodic romance, its heart similarly graceful and reassuring to subdue the shadows which skirt but never threaten its hope fuelled beauty. It is fair to say that the song has been a powerful draw for a great many into Sustain The Illusion and for newcomers into the creative realm of Sweet Gum Tree, and even after a flood of plays seduces as powerfully as ever.
The album closes with the reassuring lullaby of Keeper, a safety clad hug which encapsulates everything masterfully charismatic and fascinating about not only the album but Sojo’s songwriting and talent. So we suggest you do yourself a big favour and check out Sustain The Illusion and Sweet Gum Tree now!
Sustain The Illusion is out now @ https://sweetgumtree.bandcamp.com/
http://sweetgumtree.tv http://facebook.com/sweetgumtree http://twitter.com/SweetGumTree
Pete RingMaster 03/10/2017
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
The shadowy saunter of Black Triangle taunts and entices next, Kolega and Explicit exchanging their lyrical contemplations before Cunningham and Horrocks merge their harmonic intimation; this all within a psyche haunting smoulder of sound and suggestion. The song with a whisper of Lazy Habits to it is delicious, dramatic and seductive and sharing yet another aspect to The Moods sound and imagination, a multi-faceted proposition expanded again by the pop infused and insistently compelling Gotta Get A Hold.
Their acoustic prowess is still in evidence but embraced by a new indie/progressive/math rock venture which truly refuses to sit in any camp but embraces plenty of styles and flavours within its retro kissed synth inspired adventure. To say it is magnetic from start to finish does not do the increasing irresistibility of the album justice. It swiftly gets under the skin and engagingly niggles away whether with or without its company. It all starts with In Their Masses, the song rising from an initial ignition sparking sample in a melodic haze before guitars begin weaving their suggestive enterprise around the vocal prowess of Leader and the assisting tones of Donohue and band. Perpetually blossoming second by second as melodies and harmonies cluster, a seventies synth essence brings its flowing colours to the creative canvas. It is just one of the emerging traits though, a raw alternative growl having its moment in voice and sound too before things settle back into the track’s gentler yet still fiery seduction.
Health for Wealth churns up the senses next with its own web of waspish grooves, surly dynamics, and choleric attitude; American Wrecking Company lacing it with a belligerence caked but open melodic dexterity which just lights up appetite and imagination while its successor, The Burning lives up to its name in touch and atmosphere. It feels like a sonic witch hunt, every note and syllable a combative infestation of psyche preying on ears and the world but entwined with a flirtation of grooves and enterprise which keeps the track on a constant evolution within its fractious pyre.
Fireballs boogies in ears next with its garage rock psyche pop, its crescendo building surges a deceptive pleasure as they never erupt into a full-on blaze, just into the next cycle of irrepressible teasing for its own heat soaked orgasmic pleasure while Never Sorry plunders the decades for its psyche infesting rock ‘n’ roll, flirting with the inspirations of artists like the 5678’s and April March along the way. Both tracks are sheer addiction in the making though that equally applies to the whole of the album including the thicker boned Suzy Don’t Stop. The rhythmic bullying is raw feet temptation whilst the fire borne strains of guitar and brass are delicious toxins in the virulence of song and vocal exhortation.
References to the likes of Paramore and Don Broco seem to crop up more often than not and it is easy to hear why but as fourth track Ghost of Letting Go steps forward, Orestea only establish their own individual character upon thought and sound. The song is a fiery ballad built on the metallic strains of Quinn’s bass; a song with irritability in its roar and harmonic grace in its calm which only captivates before Alive or Just Existing shows the band is just as adept at kicking up a storm though that attack is unsurprisingly bound in an infectiousness which has the body bouncing and energies rising. It is pure pop rock ‘n’ metal mastery and another pinnacle upon the already praise stamped proposition.