The Dining Rooms – Do Hipsters Love Sun (Ra)?

Six and a half years since the last post, here’s The Dining Rooms back with a new album. This is their first in four years.  The mood is still lush downtempo but with a more experimental edge than their earlier work, which reaches back into the 90s.

Opener, Space is the Place is a lovely one note organ intro, full of lush softness and a dreamy quality. Do Hipsters Love Sun (Ra)? Is a more beat poetry sound of anticipated jazz scat. Appuntamento Su Marte is more of the same.

Interstellar marries the beat jazz of the previous two tracks to a more cosmic air. Once were Warriors avoids the edgy drums and sinks back into hipster loveliness and the most exquisite twangy guitar.

Devil’s Moon keeps the guitar but uses it to dial up the tension. Venere lapses back into reverie with piano and brushes. Saturno offers early 60s spy break music, showing off their cinematic flair.  Sergio Leone Asteroid offers a sample of Sergio, which this monoglot didn’t understand. I was rather hoping for something Westernish but this doesn’t quite get there.

Instrumental hip hop is back isn’t quite as billed. It’s more a jazz inflected filler piece. Light Time Tales follows suit. Agnone Bagni D’Inverno manages to have the bass offer a moody anticipatory car chase scene. Marte has a sunset urban feel. The album closes with Love Story. This allows the album to wind down slowly through plucked guitar and lazy hip hop beats as the credits roll.

This is a brave, cinematic and ultimately successful album that has its heart in the 60s and its head in today. A return to form. Thanks chaps.

~ by acidted on December 21, 2015.