First impressions are important and, merely by looking at the cover art for this album, I reckoned that “Habitat” by C’mon Tigre” might well be important enough to be interesting and I suppose that, in a way, it was.
If there were to be one word that I might use to describe this album then ornate would be that word. There certainly isn’t anything stripped out or basic about any of these songs and neither is there a shortage of musical influences with samba syncopation being mixed into a musical soup containing all sorts of chord complexity. Oddly enough, given the complexity and the clearly obvious amount of work that is gone into the production, this album works best as background music but not because it is easy to ignore but because it provides the kind of soundtrack that would accompany a whole variety of activities ranging all the way from cooking to cleaning.
So, was “Habitat” actually as interesting as its cover would suggest? That’s not an easy question to answer for this isn’t the kind of album that can be measured against any mainstream yardstick. I can appreciate the effort has gone into this album’s creation yet I could not feel that sparkle while listening to it. Your mileage may, of course, vary.