Shorelife by Mouth Music (CD, Feb-1995, Ryko Distribution)

Album Features
UPC:	014431030925
Artist:	Mouth Music
Format:	CD
Release Year:	1995
Record Label:	Ryko Distribution
Genre:	Celtic, International

Track Listing
1. Move On
2. Tomorrow
3. World Is For All
4. Time
5. Ruler of the Tides
6. Make It Real
7. Forever to Travel
8. Infinity
9. Colour of My Love

Details
Producer:	Chic Medley, Martin Swan
Distributor:	Ryko Distribution
Recording Type:	Studio
Recording Mode:	Stereo
SPAR Code:	n/a

Album Notes
Mouth Music: Jackie Joyce, Michaela Rowan, Willie MacDonald (vocals), Martin Swan (vocals, guitar, violin, bamboo & block flutes, whistle, keyboards, drum, djembe, darabuka, conga, cowbells, triangle, timbarim, baobab pods, programming), George MacDonald (tenor saxophone), Quee MacArthur (bass), James Makintosh (drums, tabla, drum programming), Jeremy Black (congas, bongos, rototoms), Chic Medley (programming).Recorded at Castle Mouth Music, Scotland.All songs written or co-written by Jackie Joyce and Martin Swan.With Shorelife, Mouth Music continues its move into a sort of undifferentiated worldbeat sound, and the resulting fusion, while still powerful, is not quite as compelling as that of their first two albums. Singers Jackie Joyce and Michaela Rowan both have voices to die for -- clear, flutelike sopranos that blend like milk and vanilla and draw you in effortlessly on tracks like "Ruler of the Tides" and the caressingly lovely "Time." The guys in the band play all the instruments, and while they certainly do give up the funk, it's a complex, polyrhythmic, African sort of funk, rather than booty-shaking grooves. Where the lyrics used to be strange and abstract, they are becoming increasingly political and, frankly, hackneyed -- the percolating, pulsating grooves are sometimes weighed down by clunky platitudes like "We must nurture, we must labour/For our future we must cater" and "See them standing on the corner/Little boys with so much anger." Still, the good far outweighs the mediocre on this album, and it is recommended highly, along with their earlier work. ~ Rick Anderson

Editorial Reviews
...one of the oddest and most interesting pop music ensembles around...the band's blend of rhythm and blues, Gaelic lyricism and techno, world music and funk...is so inventive and insistent that it's virtually impossible to pull the different influences apart...
Option (19950501)