"You put my feet back on the ground. Did you know you brought me around? You were sweet and you were sound. See I had shrunk yet still you wore me around. And 'round and 'round" - Zero 7, Somersault (When it Falls)
I bought Zero 7's second disc, When It Falls, the day it hit record stores. I had been so enamored with everything Zero 7 (Simple Things, Simple Things Remixes, Another Late Night, their live performances) that it was a given. What Sam Hardaker and Henry Binns do with music is mind-blowing. The ample use of strings and bass lines paired with the silky voices they find to use on record is something special. It's soulful classical music that you can dance to, get high on, and make love by. So, it was a shock to me that I listened to the new CD a few times, never all the way through, and then put it away, moving on to other things.
My ears weren't impressed. My first instinct was that the new music wasn't all that new. The songs sounded like they filled much of the same space as Simple Things. It was pretty music but nothing earth-shattering. I didn't find myself telling everyone who would listen that they needed Sia and Mozes and the boys from the UK in their lives. Sometimes first impressions are wrong.
I've been listening to the album non-stop for a little over a week now. It started simply enough. Home was playing on the radio and for a good half of the song, I was shocked. Who is singing this, I thought? Why don't I own this? Its so wonderful. By the end of the track, though, I realized I did own it and, in fact, was ignoring it. So, I popped it into the boomin' system in my car and found myself being taken away.
Somersault is my song of the moment. Featuring Sia, my vocal Venus, over a lush, beautiful track. Zero 7 performs an ode to the whimsy of, well, simple things. Sia sings about the wonderful, unrecognized nice things that the object of her affection does. She dotes:
You talk to loners, you ask how's your week
You give love to all and give love to me
You're obsessed with hiding the sticks and stones
When I feel the unknown
You feel like home, you feel like home
Yeah. I'm in that space right now.
The rest of the album isn't want for excellent singing. Mozes gives his strongest performances yet put to wax and the arrival of Ms. Tina Dico is greatly appreciated. Sophie Barker is lovely on In Time and there are some lovely instrumental moments throughout.
It is lacking a little edge, though. Where Destiny and In the Waiting Line made Simple Things a truly special recording, When It Falls seems like it's just middle ground between the auspicious debut and what these downbeat kings can truly do.
Lucky for me, then, that I've rediscovered it now when I'm lost in that same kind of abyss.
Yay me.