Boozoo Bajou's evolution from electronica-influenced chillout act to retro-minded producers releasing their "most organic album so far" seems a common way for trip-hop/downbeat acts to grow old. The Nuremberg duo's third effort,
Grains arrived just months after
Jazzanova's throwback album
Of All the Things, but rather than soul,
Boozoo called upon the Laurel Canyon sound for inspiration and dropped names like
Neil Young,
Joni Mitchell, and
Jackson Browne as influences. The good news is that
Grains is no studied exercise in nostalgic re-creation and the voice of the duo still comes through, just as it did previously during
Boozoo's flirtation with reggae, jazz, and Cajun music. Members
Florian Seyberth and
Peter Heider naturally inject such a European feel into their arrangements that the opening
"Flickers" with guest vocalist
Bernd Batke sounds as much like
Robert Wyatt as it does '70s California.
"Sign" is as American-flavored as any given
Paul Weller record thanks to the full-bodied voice of
Eric Duperray and a horn section straight out of
the Style Council. Other traditional songs that succeed are the breezy
"Same Sun" and the very laid-back title track, but what makes the album an overall success are the tracks with the German titles, aka the moody instrumentals. Save a couple Jamaican samples and electronic moments left over from
Boozoo's early days, the atmospheric pieces could be a lazy afternoon hangout session where a 1971
Pink Floyd are captured sharing the summer breeze with a 1975
Fleetwood Mac. All these downbeat tone poems are casually dispersed among the songs, making for an album that meanders and drifts as much as it comforts and soothes. Take the undemanding
Grains as
Boozoo stylishly growing older or tastefully becoming untroubled. ~ David Jeffries
