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DATEMONTHYEAR: Pot/Kettle/Black!

There’s a convoluted explanation of the concept behind DateMonthYear which is over my head, but they’re not a band and have released a CD entitled ‘Pot/Kettle/Black!’ Okay. Opening with a sweeping percussive orchestral soundtrack the disc moves to more traditional song structures. The track cycle seems to detail a day of drudgery and narrow experience (sample title selection: Awake, Traffic, Work, Hometime, Asleep). Hardly inspiring, and vocalist Shaye Simpson’s contribution suffers from a lack of tonal variation, which makes her repeated refrains somewhat wearing. In fact the whole thing paints a picture of workaday tedium and the effect is depressing. Ironically Work offers relief with a day dreamy circular arpeggio motif and scything strings. Hometime is more jaunty and optimistic, punctuated with stacatto horn stabs. Down has an effective ambient coda and p.s.1.4 shows some spunk, but it’s already too late – PKB comes across as a poor man’s Morcheeba with pitch issues.

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