D CDs #474: Noise Of Summer

One of the nicest things about the D CDs project is how far it can force me out of my comfort zone. This is probably the furthest out from shore I've been yet, and the water is no less deep for the sea being gentle and sun-kissed.

It's not just the "Latin reggae" thing, either, though that's already at least a time zone away from my regular haunts. There's not even really any lyrics here for me to over-analyse. Even the songs in English here don't aim for anything past easy-sounding nonsense. I can't even get worked up by the careless linking of enjoying sex and criminal activity in "Promiscuity" (sorry, "promiskwity"). It just doesn't read as a slice of puritanical moralising, so much as a careless afternoon's leafing through a rhyming dictionary. There's no more weight to the lyrics here than the eclectic, gleefully silly choice of samples throughout. How are you supposed to fret about what could be read as an ill-judged puritanical lecture when it's delivered alongside what sounds like a chipmunk in mourning?

Without my standard crutch, then, what is there to talk about? Atmospherics, naturally. This is a summer record. I don't mean it's a record that belongs to summer, or one best played then (though I think both are true). I mean it's an album that generates summer. It doesn't matter if I'm playing "...Esperanza" over a beer on a warm day, or spinning it in the car during a drive through winter darkness and lashing rain. The mood it generates is inescapable, all breezy promenades and self-conscious-free boogying on sandy beaches. I listened to a sermon once where the minister talked about the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. "One changes with the room's temperature, the other changes the temperature of a room".

"Poximon Estacion Esperanza" is a thermostat record. It evokes feelings of warmth and relaxation, and does this despite - or surely because of - the madness surging just beneath the surface. In Manu Chao's world, you're never more than a few seconds away from an interjection by a demented duck,  or a drunk in a midnight choir of Clangers. The result sounds like the inner soundtrack to David Lynch's head on the happiest, drunkest night of his life - the sadness is still there, but even that tastes sweet (the opening track "Merry Blues" puts this tension front and centre, from its title onwards).

A deceptively simple, smooth listen, then, enjoyable for the initial sparkle and commendably disciplined assembly alone (more than half the songs here last less than three minutes, and none last more than five). Dive under the surface of the glittering ocean, though, and you'll find hidden depths, and creatures of strange beauty uncoiling to sing to you.

 Seven and half tentacles.