Beach: St. Tropez, The

[coll]: THE BEACH – ST. TROPEZ
Petrol France, 2005

Mostly appealing mix of sexy European jazz-pop, downtempo electronica, and other sounds, loosely themed around a visit to the famous French beach-resort town of St. Tropez. A few tracks (4,7) are already in the library, but most are new to us. Cool stuff.

Fo’s Picks: 2, 4, 5, 8, 12

1. 1:18 – funky soul-jazz quartet from a 1972 film, with vibraphone.
2. 5:04 – spooky accordion, upbeat Riviera riffs, filtered spoken vox, some fuzz guitar
3. 4:53 – relaxed acid jazz/bossa-dub groove with trombone + orchestra samples
4. 3:25 – perky spy-guitar riffs, cute French male vox, plus some raucous folk backing
5. 3:49 – smooth but tweaked-out bossa nova groove with sax, wave sounds, etc.
6. 1:54 – relaxed vibe, acoustic guitars, handclaps, filtered off-key vox, speeds up
7. 4:18 – spacey pop: male/fem duo vox, catchy guitar & bass, echo-swirl background
8. 4:25 – very nice! looped bongos & guitars, whistling, harmonica, vox, a few beeps
9. 3:54 – bird calls, then fast drum machine, looped kid vox, guitar twangs & clarinet
10. 3:50 – snappy synth-pop, woman saying “that is very very bad,” some horn stings
11. 4:01 – uptempo, snappy electro beat, deadpan English male vox, very odd
12. 4:48 – cool percussion/horn samples, built around strange fem spoken bits
13. 3:41 – midtempo groove with cinematic samples woven through, some bleepy bits
14. 3:10 – breathy Beaudelaire poem reading and spacey guitar/synth jam. Overdone.

[Fo] – 11/6/05