Sound Echo Location - Honeyroot

...month after their debut album; Sound Echo Location was released on the Just Music label. I was actually looking to buy a CD for a friend's birthday, a Jon Hopkins CD, none were in stock so I took a listen to the sample tracks available and I was mesmerised.....

Honeyroot were founded by ex-Heaven 17 (Temptation, We Don't Need This Fascist Grove Thing) front man Glenn Gregory & ex-ABC member, Keith Lowndes. Now, you'd have thought with ...
...far off lands but on sound tracks, this become harder and this is where you feel where the weaker tracks of the album are let down, they have no emotion or imagery within them.

Drawing influences from all aspects of the music business such as Air, Groove Armada & Joy Division. Honeyroot have created an imaginary Ibiza on CD lasting 1hr and 4 minutes and it really is worth a listen to, time and time again. This is a 10 track album, ... more

Some of my best buys have come about completely by accident and this is another. I came across Honeyroot in July 2004, a month after their debut album; Sound Echo Location was released on the Just Music label. I was actually looking to buy a CD for a friend's birthday, a Jon Hopkins CD, none were in stock so I took a listen to the sample tracks available and I was mesmerised.....

Honeyroot were founded by ex-Heaven 17 (Temptation, We Don't Need This Fascist Grove Thing) front man Glenn Gregory & ex-ABC member, Keith Lowndes. Now, you'd have thought with both of these contentious characters any music that was as a result of a musical partnership, would be heavily influenced by the 80's music scene, you couldn't be more wrong.

Imagine lying on a beach in Ibiza (or similar clubbers paradise), imagine a night filled with clubbing, loud pumping drum and bass and then waking up in the sand after that heavy night, surrounded by friends, fellow clubbers and the sun, take all of this and you have some idea of the influence behind this album, it was, after all, conceived by the 2 members on a beach or depending which article you read, Café Del Mar, home of the quintessential Ibiza Chill Out scene and it relies somewhat heavily on this imagery within the album. The music is so evocative in some tracks, it is easy to imagine yourself in far off lands but on sound tracks, this become harder and this is where you feel where the weaker tracks of the album are let down, they have no emotion or imagery within them.

Drawing influences from all aspects of the music business such as Air, Groove Armada & Joy Division. Honeyroot have created an imaginary Ibiza on CD lasting 1hr and 4 minutes and it really is worth a listen to, time and time again. This is a 10 track album, but don't be fooled into thinking this will be poor value, all but one of the tracks are in the range of 5-8 minutes long, giving you time to really absorb yourself into the music & giving you a chance to sit down, close your eyes and really believe you're floating away somewhere exotic.

Here is a brief description of all the album tracks and my opinions on them:

Losing My Mind (6 min 13 secs)
"I've been losing my mind baby….since I've been loving you…..and I love you"
This track is an absolutely beautiful combination of the sound of rain falling, thunder breaking, a Spanish guitar, an electric guitar and sweet like chocolate vocals. The song is about losing ones mind, since loving and maybe losing someone? I could sit and listen to this all night, this is very much a night music track, it's heavy, it's got thunder and it's dark but it maintains a melodic ambience that's strangely calming yet strangely unnerving all the same. These are contexts that shouldn't actually work together but they do and they work so well. Get your self submerged in this track.

Sunrise, Sunset (6 mins 12 secs)
"That beautiful old song….."
A mainly instrumental track one that you can really imagine the sun rising to, infuses a mix of records scratching with a drum beat undercurrent, not one of the albums stronger tracks, but a nice pick me up after Losing My Mind.

Sweet As Honey (6 min 7 secs)
"You make my life taste as sweet as honey"
Angie Brown adds vocals to this upbeat dance track which weaves the best of dance and trance together whilst retaining a mellow vibe to it. The dance feel is very much the dominant presence aside from Angie Brown's vocal, which are sexy and sultry but they also lift this track from being a completely dancey dancey piece to something altogether more relaxing. Definitely one of the albums stronger tracks.

French Theme (3 min 23 sec)
I would say this is an Air inspired piece of music, I don't like it, I don't think the feel fits in with the rest of the album. This track turns its hand to more of an electronic feel rather than that of the chill out feel of the rest of the album, it's an instrumental piece which wouldn't be out of place in a supermarket.

State Of Mind (6 min 3 sec)
"Just a state of mind…"
A fusion of drums, bass and sassy male vocals, not too dissimilar to Massive Attack. Bringing in chill out ambience with DJ scratches, this is a real sun going down tune. You could easily imagine yourself sitting with the dark glasses on, watching the sun disappear and start dancing but equally you can feel yourself really falling into this tune after a while. It is a grower of a track. This track also features on one of Honeyroot's later releases 'We Don't Need This Fascist State of Mind', a mix of this track and Heaven 17's 'We Don't Need This Fascist Groove Thing'

Falling (8 min 5 sec)
"I think I'm falling…..falling in love….with you…baby….baby"
The album's longest track at 8 minutes 50 seconds and it is probably the least strong of the album. Slightly babyish female vocals and clumsy piano and scratchy noises. It is too sickly sweet for me. It's too long, it's a nothing track, nothing really hooks you or gets you going about this track, in fact I am finding it hard to write something interesting about it!

Sound, Echo, Location (5 min 13 sec)
"Sound, Echo, Location"
Another track that draws it's influence from Massive Attack. This track has a heavily electronic feel and the dark electronic vocals complete the line up. This track is probably the most different from the rest, it takes a wholly different style of music and infuses it to make this a dark track which is heavy and yet awe inspiring at the same time. It is a middle of the road track.

Starshine (7 min 50 sec)
"There's a star that shines…..for everyone….."
Returning the Ibiza chill out theme once more, Starshine is a lighter track infusing jazz saxophone melodies with the traditional electronically made chill out theme. Crisp but haunting vocals complete this lovely track immersing you in a world full of sunsets and sun rises. Probably 2nd best track of the album.

Blue Space (7 min 35 sec)
"This is the rhythm, just a fantasy"
Predominantly instrumental track with some distant vocal sampling. This really sets the tone for the finale of the album but as a track, it's not particularly inspiring at first but just wait until you get passed the music that makes you feel as though you have just been launched into space and your floating somewhere above earth. Once the dance beats get going 2 and a half minutes in, and the muffled, computer like vocals get going, you can help but giggle, not because the track is in anyway bad, it 'sjust is a feel good track but it is just a mediocre track in the albums context.

Summer Sky (7 min 10 sec)
"Floating in the summer sky"
Cue blue skies, waves crashing, birds overhead and Spanish guitar player…that is essentially what this track is all about. The track opening with waves crashing, a relaxing Spanish guitar melody plays over sultry beats that hypnotize you, pan piped type music comes in and you can feel yourself falling into a deep relaxing state with this track, either that or you find yourself indulging in to some sexy moves to the opposite sex! This track takes what obvious was the inspiration for the album, sun, sea, sand and puts it together with fantastic hypnotic ambience. This is the strongest track on the album and my personal favourite just because the sounds used are so evocative. It's sad when this track ends.

This album is missing a key track, however, Honeyroot reworked Joy Divisions' "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and some say it was awful, some say it was beautiful, I liked it but despite it being released before the album, it's not on here. Later editions of this album feature the track but it was also re-released in July 2005. The track didn't chart which may have been why it wasn't included first time around. Honeyroot also reworked an old Heaven 17 song 'We Don't Need This Fascist Groove Thing' and mixed it with the album track 'State Of Mind and came up with 'We Don't Need This Fascist State Of Mind'', it is a good track, it infuses soulful vocal and a heavy dance undercurrent, sadly it doesn't feature on an album yet, but if you can get hold of an download or CD version, it is worth doing so and you will see how diverse Honeyroot can go.

This album has such a variety of musical influences, it's hard to pin point sometimes but sometimes it's blatantly obvious. I love the female vocals on this album, the richness, the soul just carries you off into the sunset, and it's just such a shame that they are unaccredited on the album, which, when you imagine that over half of the tracks feature a female vocalist, is criminal because they actually carry some of the weaker tracks.

I have seen this CD recommended recently for Yoga, I'm not quite sure about this, I'd imagine it to be a bit too upbeat on some tracks or Yoga classes but maybe if you do yoga at home it would be ok. I personally love to put this CD on at night, draw the curtains, turn off the lights, lie down and just submerge myself in the ambience.

This CD is not going to be to everyone's taste, although Honeyroot do feature on TV soundtracks and you'll probably recognise some pieces of music. You won't like this is you want to dance around the house like it's Ibiza, you'll like this if you want a BBQ in the garden and good relaxing CD to put on after you've eaten and to enjoy conversation with. Heaven 17 and ABC fans may not approve but things have moved on and sometimes, when you're old, you just have to pretend to be 18 again and this is just the result of Keith & Greg doing so.

I obtained my CD from
www.ambientmusic.co.uk at the price of £10, it is now £10.23+ Vat bu you get free shipping.
Amazon and HMV also stock and you can also buy the singles 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' & WeDon't Need This Fascist State of Mind' Also on this site you can listen to track samples from Honeyroot.

My ratings
2 weak tracks, French Theme & Falling
2 Exceptional Tracks, Summer Sky & Losing My Mind
6 Very good tracks.

Will they become mainstream?
I doubt it, they are very much and acquired taste, although who knows what they'll do next?

Web:
A limited website for Honeyroot is available at
http://www.honeyroot.com

Thanks for reading xx
 

...less