I’m not really sure where to start this review. You see, most of the time the albums on offer for review have some relevancy to dance/electronic music. This album however is about as far away from anything electronic or dance as possible; it’s unashamedly ‘country’. The one link it has to electronic music is that the brains behind this is in part Solal (AKA Philippe Cohen Solal) of Gotan Project fame. His love of the genre began with Neil Young’s album Harvest, which led him to study the music at a college in Tennessee. After the course he went onto Nashville on a mission to find some like-minded musicians to collaborate with. “I had sort of a speech for them. I said, ‘I’m more a DJ, composer and song-writer. I’m totally from a different field from you and I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do together on this CD. But I think we should try something refreshing for you and refreshing for me.”

the result? It’s an interesting mix of original tunes and covers, and probably the least likely of covers you’d expect to hear in this genre is that of the Sex Pistol’s Pretty Vacant. Another interesting addition to the album is the cover of Abba’s Dancing Queen. It’s a very clever cover, taking the subtle lilt of the original tune and slowing it right down, and the Southern twanged vocals really give a whole new perspective on the track.
OK, there’s that old joke about if you play a country song backwards you get your dog back, your job and your woman. Thankfully the lyrical content is a little more sophisticated that that, and its not total country cliché. It’s a pretty heavy album lyrically speaking, with traditional themes of loneliness, un-requited love and loss.

If you’re not into country sounds – acoustic guitars, mandolins, fiddles – then you really aren’t going to get into this. That said, there are some beautiful vocals from Melonie Cannon and the harmony at the end of the track Fade Away is impressive. For me, the most enjoyable aspect of the album was the pace. The tunes just arrive, and in between each track there are short sound bytes breaking up the music. It’s definitely a chill out album, but perhaps not in the same vein as a Ministry of Sound chill out album!