THE ZOOM – WASTING TIME ALBUM REVIEW

Press releases get many things wrong. Often you’ll find a zealous and entirely inappropriate comparison of a less than average band with The Beatles, Nirvana or The Arctic Monkeys. Mediocre bands are “ground breaking”, dull records are “this year’s best album”, boring songs are “the sound of this summer”. And so it goes on.

The Zoom’s press release is wrong too. But for entirely different reasons. The writer describes The Zoom as a fictional band. Which is clearly nonsense.

The entirely tangible album encased in a non-fictional envelope and posted through my corporeal letter box by an equally real-life postman (or bona fide woman) can only have come from a genuine, entirely existent creator. Maybe you should call me a musical creationist.

The Archies, Josie and the Pussycats or Dingoes Ate My Baby The Zoom is not. What this band is, like Kent’s Odd Note, Cry Baby Special or The Baron Van Marlon, is a one man act, Sam Flastic Hughes, aided and abetted for the purposes of the record by Thomas Hughes.

The result is hugely impressive: a whimsical whirlwind through pop at its experimental, psychedelic best. Hughes has taken inspiration from the imagination of early Barrett era Pink Floyd and mixed it with the epic grandeur of later Floyd. Elsewhere there are hints of music from early Fleetwood Mac to very recent Flaming Lips.

The innovation on this album is staggering – as can be heard on the first track alone. It’s not called “Showcase” for nothing, you know. There are continental jazz riffs, crazy organ solos, ripples of water and mad, mad complicated clapping rhythms. And that just accounts for a minute of two of the gargantuan piece.

Along with the standard instrumentation you’d usually find (guitars, bass, drums), you’ll find some slightly less usual instruments (a selection of keyboards and organs, an accordion and theramin).

And then you’ll find the downright weird instruments too. In fact, they’re so weird, they’re barely instruments at all. A Stanley knife, spatula, tray of drinks, “jumping on the stairs” and “munching pies” are just some of the sounds you’ll find on this album.

You’ll also hear the “bells of St. Mary, the Virgin, Glanvilles Wotton”, “excerpts from a shopping trip to Tesco” and “the beautiful chirruping of a young swallow who hatched in Alton Pancras.”

But rather than this being weird and eccentric for the sake of it, all the above sounds (and many, many more) just fit. The chirruping, the bells, the supermarket customers all just sound perfect.

Words fill only part of this record. But much thought has gone into the lyrics that do appear; much of the album is concerned with the nature of time and the need to make the most of it. And there’s plenty of regret and self loathing to be had to (see “Been Practising”).

It’s intriguing then that this album is so content as to take its time. The songs are allowed to breathe much more freely than they might, thanks to the beautiful, elongated instruments. The vocals, on “Where Did All The Time Go” only appear after most radio friendly pop songs would have usually finished.

The instrumental piece preceding it recalls “Lucky Trumble” by Nancy Wilson which features on the “Almost Famous” soundtrack.

This is a musician’s music. It’s not a case of four lads getting together in a garage to see how noisy they can get and how many girls the can pull in the process. (Though maybe that’s not such a bad way of conducting your life). Rather, the thought and gleeful experimentation that’s gone into this series of recordings is phenomenal.

This is music to drown your ears in.

Find out more about The Zoom here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sam-Flastic-Hughes-Music/147562691974489