POOR GENEETIC MATERIAL summerland
		Format CD Country Germany Recorded 2001 Issued 2001 Label QuiXote Music Cat no. CD 13 Playing time 43:25 Reviewer Sven Eriksen

This band started out as an experimental improvising duo, but through the help of the vocalist and drummer from the band Alias Eye, they have put together this record, which is positioned somewhere between the traditional, the melancholic and the eccentric.

Summerland is an album which speaks carefully and in small letters. Sometimes they remind me of Fra Lippo Lippi, other times of Talk Talk, and even A-Ha. And it is inevitable that when the very gifted singer Philip Griffiths performs his plaintive vocals, I remember the band that his father used to sing with in the early 70s – Beggar’s Opera. Not that the music itself resembles (except perhaps for the track Wouldism), but the voice, the voice is the same.

The music is frequently quite sparingly arranged, simple but thoroughly considered, stylistically a kind of alternative pop mixed with dreamy, meditative parts. The many synths and Griffiths’ vocals are the most distinctive elements, and together they create the particular atmosphere which ensures that what could have been an ordinary record instead has become an exciting listening experience. A record to play loud, a record to drown yourself in.

© 2001 Tarkus Magazine

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