TAKE TIME TO WONDER IN A WHIRLING WORLD

I tend to have a problem with music in which I have an uneasy sense that the artists aren't serious, like they are cracking jokes at my expense. That's not to say that they should scowl for all posterity as on those 1970s album covers, or that they should consider themselves saviors of all that is meaningful in contemporary popular music. I tend to give such acts wide berth, but sometimes, as in the likes of OS MUTANTES and their distant Welsh foster children SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS, formed in 2001 and releasing this, their first, in 2007, I grudgingly acknowledge their superiority over me and pretend I actually have much of a clue what their deal is. Preparing a review helps with that, if I can avoid betraying myself in the preamble. Oh wait.

This is a bit like late 60s psych meets contemporary indie pop, with a swirl of folk and even less prog, the latter concentrated in one bloated but ultimately satisfying track. Maybe NORTH SEA RADIO ORCHESTRA is a fair reference in terms of instrumentation and audience sophistication, but mostly I'm thrashing about in the deep end here. Interesting that, on spotify (don't judge me), the track "I Wanted You" has received about 20X more plays than any other track, and it's a good one, like what you might here on Sirius' "coffeehouse" station if they were willing to arc 2 or 3 degrees away from their flaked potatoes mixture, The following 2 songs round out the best of this disc, with "Siberia" being one of the only longer pieces. Later, "I'll be Happy, I'll be Sleeping" seems to adopt a fatalistic view on seemingly inevitable futures, which, while hardly the stuff of folk activists (do these truly exist any more?), might be a lot healthier for everyone than living with low or mid level stress for one's remaining years.

Finally, "The Caterpillar Song", alluded to earlier, takes a while to integrate with the rest, both in terms of full on prog folk credentials and too-hot-to-touch lead guitar soloing towards the end, the only place I hear the instrument anywhere on the record, but I'm happy with it now in much the same way as I was with FRESH MAGGOTS and MIDNIGHT CIRCUS when they drove their pH down into the danger zone. I wish I had reference points where the band members might still be in independent living. But spotify is good for that!

As far away musically if not geographically from my recent neo folk explorations as can be while still essentially folk, SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS give me pause to wonder, if my head, or maybe some other orb, could just stop spinning. Mildly recommended.