Customer Reviews

I Dreamed We Fell Apart

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It's easy to picture Torquil Campbell with a glass of red wine in one hand and a quill in the other. The frontman for soft-focus popsters Stars plays the part of hopeless romantic yet again with Memphis, his side project with multi-instrumentalist Chris Dumont. The duo released an EP back in 2002, but only got around to recording this debut full-length last summer, calling on friends like Metric's James Shaw and Stars' Pat McGee.I Dreamed We Fell Apart starts out light and airy with acoustic guitars shimmering over an electro template ("The Second Summer"), like Belle and Sebastian slow-dancing with Nick Drake. It's a fine setting for Campbell's sigh of a voice, but his knack for tempering sweetness with a side of bitter kicks in through the centre of the album, with darker, sinister pieces like "East Van." The effervescent cover of the Pet Shop Boys' "Love Comes Quickly" is an inspired paean to falling head over heels. This is a swoony set of chilled-out bliss -- like the last hazy days of summer as they melt into fall.

On saturday december 11, 2004 we saw Memphis playing at Rothko (new york lower east side bar) and it was amazing, a wonderful performance filled with colors and sounds. It reminds me of bands such as Sigur Ros or Clinic but Memphis has their own nature, some sort of psychedelic beauty. Check it out (^_^) !

Torquil's Memphis's I Dreamed we Fell Apart starts off great with Second Summer, in true Stars mode. After that there are two nice songs For Anyone 18 and Into the Wild that blend well together. After that things seem to veer into a monotonous swirl of sounds that are really not all that interesting. It doesn't pick up again until the track "Nada" and their rendition of the Pet Shop Boys "Love comes Quickly" comes and saves it from me never playing this cd again. In summary there are some great things about this CD but not enough to save it from going in my CD storage box for the next 2 years until I re-sell it.