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24 August 2011

Music that makes me smile

New tunes by Fruit Bats and Rollo Jean.

By Tom Ravenscroft

This week has brought with it two records that, under normal circumstances, I think I would have hissed at but instead have taken in my embrace and allowed to define the new me. This pair of identity shakers are a bit feel-good, sort of cheesy, a bit high-five and, dare I say it, a touch glam. Fruit Bats’ “You’re Too Weird”, off their fifth album, Tripper, could, at first, make you gag ever so slightly. It made me think of the Bee Gees in a rubbish western — I don’t want to think about that ever.

Then there is “St Tropez” by Rollo Jean, a deeply confusing piece that travels through a variety of genres, sprinkling stardust and sequins over all of them as it goes. To counteract all this glam, there is a slightly seedy and uncomfortable video of some girl stripping in their bedrooms to accompany it. I suspect that the boy Toby, who is behind Rollo Jean, might prove to be a rather talented chap. It can’t have been easy to control a record that sounds so desperate to keep rushing off in a thousand directions. I may, any day now, come to dislike both of these records but, for now, they are making me smile.

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