single review ~ 'mizaru' ~ robocobra quartet

Robocobra Quartet, a band so clearly obsessed with pushing the sonic boundaries of popular music, have done so again with startling ease on this new record. It is an effortless swim through calmer seas, the crime-novel tension of songs like 'Knotweed' replaced by the sound of this four piece in total harmony.

Allow, if you will, your mind to wander alongside 'Mizaru's floating bass line and light drum beats. I see a hip underground bar-come-library, somewhere in New York  City . The year is 1969 and dreams are in short supply. It is here that Chris Ryan and his band of jazz-inspired lovelies gather. They talk of hope and buy everybody drinks. They tell stories late into the night and smoke and joke, and sometimes they don't do anything at all. That is, until the call of the old drum-set in the corner becomes too much. A small crowd gathers in the back of the bar. A copy of Albert Camus' 'The Stranger' is tossed into the air for no reason in particular. The bar tender, a Filipino affectionately nick-named Paulie, starts chanting 'Robo-cobra! Robo-cobra!'. Its the only English he knows and tonight it's enough.

The band pick up their instruments and without even looking at eachother, they launch into 'Mizaru'.

It is brilliant.

Taylor Johnson