Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 02/20/2007
Upon first listen,
"Lazy Girls," the opening song on
City Beach, seems like nothing more than an appealingly lazy, hazy way to kick off the first solo album from former
Luscious Jackson leader
Jill Cunniff, but it soon becomes clear that her praise of slow, leisurely afternoons, laid-back boys, and orange popsicles isn't just a
pop confection, it's a rallying cry. "Life's to enjoy," she sings at the conclusion of its chorus, and it's a sentiment she repeats on
"Happy Warriors," when she insists that "when are you feeling down/let the record spin around" -- and if these ideas sound a little pat on paper, they sound seductive as music, particularly because
Cunniff sustains a wonderfully warm, slyly jazzy mood throughout the record. This often does evoke memories of
Luscious Jackson -- it's
pop music with a casual eclecticism, underpinned by rolling
hip-hop beats and highlighted by flourishes of
funk,
jazz, and Brazilian
bossa nova -- but where
Jackson occasionally seemed as if they were in a rush to jam as many styles into their sound as possible,
Cunniff digs deeper into her idiosyncrasies, creating music that feels unhurried and flows easily.
City Beach never hits hard, never seems forced, but even if this is deliberately lazy music, that doesn't mean that it lacks hooks or structure: if anything, the best songs here -- like the glistening, tight
pop of
"Exclusive" or the steamy, trippy
"NYC Boy" or the stomping
"Future Call," the closest this gets to being hard-edged -- are more immediate than
Luscious Jackson, evidence that
Cunniff's skills as a writer are sharpening. But the best thing about
City Beach is how
Cunniff easily sucks you into her particular worldview, where things don't need to be as desperately frenetic as they are in the thick of the 21st century. During the sultry crawl of
"Warm Sound," she suggests that we should "start the century again at a slower pace" -- and based on the sweet and slow
City Beach, it's hard not to agree with her.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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