What does it take to make a song soar? That’s a question that few seem to ask when the answer which is especially surprising when the answer is simple – the precisely targeted application of musical talent and that is, fortunately for us, the Fafa Galoure way with all, and I mean all, the songs, on their album “As You Are” easily escaping the confines of your replay equipment in order to spin dramatic tales of things that wouldn’t make any real sense in lesser hands.
To some, and this is perhaps the consequence of the complex jazz influences that seem to drive this band forward aligned with the superficially casual pacing, it might seem that this album is merely an academic exercise in the making. However, there is also a magical lyrical obscurity here that, as if haunted by the ghost of oblique poetry, nudges each and every one of these songs towards the greater purpose of exciting the spirit. “Tingle My Taste”, for example, could have been just another enchantment for the arthouse crowd but, instead, the song becomes the soundtrack for cloud surfing. Not that technological type of cloud though, but the genuine fluffy fractals that decorate the sky that is forever blue. Add the kind of emotional intensity that Efrat Cohen – for it is she who sings – brings to a song like “No Sound” and it no wonder that this particular song turns into a melancholic meditation on spiralling emptiness. No sonic gimmicks then, just making a song of substance work as it should and even the cabaret powered “Hero” seems so much more than its minimalist musical posture would have you believe.
In this reviewing business there are times when you wonder why you bother with a never ending torrent of “fixed in the mix” music trying to become the next big thing whilst those artists still willing and able to put the effort into the creation of songs that one might actually want to remember and treasure are too often swept to the side. With that in mind, it would be an injustice if “As You Are” by Fafa Galoure were to be denied adoration for this album of soaring songs is undeniably an enticing collaboration of heart and mind.
The album is available from Bandcamp.