There has already been reference to my deadline-tardiness on the front-page of Crudmusic in the past month. And yes, yes, I’m aware that ‘Let Me Introduce My Friends’ already did the pleasantries last September when it was released. But bearing all that in mind, and considering I have only had the record in my possession since yesterday, such eager efficiency should tell you an awful lot about how special it is.
There are two notable points that can’t help but immediately define I’m From Barcelona. Firstly, they couldn’t all fit into a lift. And also, probably more key to first impressions, they’re not from Barcelona. Following on in the great recent traditions of naming yourself after a European city you don’t hail from (see Architecture In Helsinki) and a displaying a flagrant disregard for time-honoured standard band structure constraints (see again Architecture In Helsinki, Polyphonic Spree, Broken Social Scene, etc), Sweden’s I’m From Barcelona are a spontaneous, evolutionary collective of friends numbering a genuinely vast 29, brought together for common cause.
But what’s impressive is how those factors aren’t the most important thing about I’m From Barcelona. Broken Social Scene are probably the last band they passed on the way up, numerically, but despite echoing their hunger and zest (then super-sizing it, naturally) they’re intrinsically different. BSS are an almost utopian commune, pooling their excitements and capabilities. These guys are just about the songs. The fuzzy, fragrant, warming, hook-sinking songs of one man. The other 28 are there to make it happen, to bring to life the ideas of founder and Manuel-from-Fawlty-Towers fan (see the name) Emanuel Lundgren.
Their closest creative peers are probably Joel Gibb’s acoustic Canadian gay church chorus (a snappier tag, anyone?) The Hidden Cameras, only inevitably without the vivid harmonic paeans to golden showers and the like. Similarities with their freeform-joy debut ‘The Smell Of Our Own’ are numerous. Though the songs come alive in much the same fashion, the premise is a whole lot more innocuous here. ‘Treehouse’ is for instance a song about just that, hence: “I have built a treehouse, nobody can see us, it’s a you and me house!”. The unpretentious positivity is overwhelming, bristling along like The Wannadies born again in the Spree’s cassocks with Peter Bjorn & John as midwife.
Elsewhere, ‘Collection Of Stamps’ is like The Delgados having a pillow fight with The Flaming Lips, ‘We’re From Barcelona’ is Belle & Sebastian’ dancing with Grandaddy at their most woozy and playful, ‘Ola Kala’ is Mercury Rev with daisies in their hair and the wind whistling around their ears like a choir, and ‘Rec & Play’ is Radio Dept tuned into The Mamas & The Pappas. You’re never really consciously aware that there could be so many involved, but each and every song swells and gathers around you eventually carrying you forward on a wave of arm-raising jubilation. You can practically feel each and every face beaming at you from behind the speakers.
Truly one of the purest albums of last year. We’re sorry we only just realised.