Daniel Ouellette & The Shobijin offer up a heady, catchy, fun brew of electronic music on their new CD The Enchantment (Songs To Sing Whilst You Sharpen Your Pencil). As the album title suggests, this music is different from what is offered on today’s radio. Yet, its unique qualities are winning qualities. Its 1980s synthesizer, drum machine influences flower into likable, infectious tunes.
Opening track “There Is A Wolf In California” begins with a poppy, light synth melody that allows Ouellette to sing subtle, eloquently over the tune. Electronic percussion and sweeps of bell like notes create an entire atmosphere and ambiance that is at once alluring and melodic. Ouellette sings of possessions in a gentle, lilting timbre that leaves it open to interpretation whether he’s celebrating “shiny things” or foreboding a danger to them. Ouellette’s ability to imply through inflection adds another layer of aural appeal.
Ouellette is sure to have a dance club hit with “I Want (That Superman Song). The protagonist/narrator of this song is a homosexual physically attracted to Superman in his tights. Aside from the humorous angle, this song is a rush of aggressive electronica, peppy drum machines, and ominous guitar chords. You feel the strange assertiveness move you along with the singer’s superhero obsession.
An infectious drum beat pulls you right into “Forever Disney.” From there, Ouellette’s haunting vocal, surrounded by two girlish voices, caresses your eardrums with its touches of foreboding, humor, and a few other dimensions all at once. The playful joy of this one, including its interval of strange acoustic guitar notes, will make you feel like singing along, like a nursery rhyme from your childhood that you can’t get out of your head once something triggers it.
“Te Odio” has a slight island feel in Ouellette’s pleasingly smooth flow vocal glide. Interweaving electronic melody lines dance; one melodic texture washes you onto the shores of aural paradise. You can feel it pull you in so smoothly you’ll enjoy going with the flow. It is often the brief artistic flourishes that make this CD endearing. “A Ghost In A Jar” unfolds an eerie texture that makes you feel foreboding in its energy Ouellette holds a vocal note over washy synths and a reluctant acoustic guitar which effects the listener on an emotional level, even if the music is performed on electronic instruments.
“Out By Assawompsett” immerses you in scary sweeps of descending electronic sounds while a circular swirl of small percussive beats becomes slowly hypnotic. There’s a cascading low end that envelops all in its path. While playing in science fiction film score mode, the nifty, brittle percussion spikes attract on the pop music level. It would be tempting to compare Ouellette to 1980s synth bands like Soft Cell and Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark. Yet, he puts a fresh spin on those influences. These clever compositions are more entertaining.
The oddly titled “A Song For Sasquatch (For The Love Of Greta Garbo) begins with a creepy dialogue between a stalker fan and a female celebrity he wants to photograph. Then, the music gets a kick start from an instantaneous burst of synths, guitar, and percussion. There is more of that action adventure urgency that compels you to listen. Ouellette adeptly switches gears from smooth vocal approach to more guttural assertiveness. The overall effect works wonders at making the listener feel that a hero is coming to the rescue.
Hip percussion intros “Under The Couch” and its horror movie themes. You know Ouellette was having fun when he recorded this one. He sings it with an exuberance that makes you wonder if the film buff is taking fandom to a whole new scary height. There are more interesting pieces following. “Ce N’est Pas Alle Sans Toi” has a merry, happy go lucky synth melody that makes you want to tap your toes and bob your head to its rhythmic pattern. As always, Ouellette has another synth circling the main melody and the added dimension gives more for the ear to fancy. He sings in French on this one, and even if you don’t know the language, he injects a lot of quirky charm.
“My Party Boy Got Covered In Lip Gloss (Standing On The Wrong Porch With All Of Our Shiny Clothes!) is a spoken word narration with humorous outcomes. I don’t want to spoil the narrator’s surprise at a wake. Closing out this unusually appealing disc is “El Principe Solitario.” Its electronic percussion and rippling keyboard notes lull you right into this ditty. Ouellette is singing in a foreign tongue, yet this is still charm and intrigue in his inflections even if you don‘t know what he is singing about. Violin from Mel Fitzhugh provides an icy cool element of mystery and sneakily augments the verse
Ouellette and his Shobijin, singers Cheryl Castonguay and Virginia King, have worked tiny miracles of interweaving vocal textures and melodies. Other players on this disc are co-producer Elizabeth Lorrey, Jamie Slyvia, Ron Pigeon, Albert Gray, James Curtis, Alexia Frye, Kayla Pigeon, Melinda Pigeon, Bob Murphy, and Joseph Carringer.
Ouellette had a lot of fun making this album with Lorrey, and his fans and fans of synth-pop are sure to have a lot of fun listening.
I would like to say thank you for taking the time to listen to our music and for writing this wonderful review. I hope all is well with you and perhaps one day we shall meet in person.
– Daniel Ouellette and the Shobijin