What’s this? A brightly coloured platter containing an arrangement of amorphous musical pop nuggets? Or a related selection of songs put together by Ashley Yao and John Chao, yet different enough to capture the interest of any serious music connoisseur with a sweet tooth for something a little more out there than the average band on the block. Both probably. It must be German label Tomlab at work again, having given us the whacked out Les Georges Leningrad, the dreamy Final Fantasy and the dance punk of Ninja High school we are now treated to Misha’s debut Teardrop Sweetheart. And how saccharine its outer coating is.
The album opens up with two of the most tasty songs ‘Scars’ and ‘Losing’ with their straight laced electronic beats mothered by electrical environmental background controls and laidback boyish vocals from John Chao illustrating life as it flows by it’s space odyssey lounge room window. Yep there are some strong electronic influences here and its no surprise with DJ Koze, DJ Phono and one of the Chicks On Speed, Melissa all offering up their support and input one way or another.
But it’s not all synthetic shunting. No, there are some strong guitar lines that give it an acoustic electro folk feel like on tropical stroll along ‘Anaconda’, bicycle breezing through the forest song ‘Summersend’ and afterhours, end of the night ditty ‘Shake A Little Looser’. And then, as with most Tomlab releases there are those tracks that make you reality check, sit up and think about what music really is. The most obvious oddity here is ‘Cruelist Heart’ with its speeded up vocal and swinging beat, that makes you wonder if your shuffle selector had malfunctioned and dropped in another band by mistake. On the flipside to this is ‘The Book (Of Glaciers)’ with a decidedly cool housey take on the Misha style, hinting at their possible remix appeal.
All in all, this album pays attention to detail and depth. Depending on your mood you can choose to focus on the vocal musings of Chao or the inner electronic production sound subtley sprinkled around the songs, spicing and sweetening them up to sound enticing enough to put any preoccupations on divert.
