The recent resurgence in Balearic pop music is a contender for the most innocuous trend redux of 2012. Forthcoming efforts from mainstays like Mungolian Jetset, Woolfy vs. Projections, and Windsurf exhibit an enthusiasm for the sound even though the spotlight has turned elsewhere. Newcomers Poolside prove that outsiders haven't lost interest, even if their debut album mostly just remind us of the halcyon days of 2007-08 when both Air France and Studio were going concerns. The Idjut Boys were content to let that last wave of attention pass them by, popping up mostly on remixes and some EPs, but they're the OGs of this very particular game, clocking 12"s as far back as 1993.
The duo-- Londoners Daniel Tyler and Conrad McDonnell-- would rightly bristle at being lumped in with any kind of movement, because when you've been making music for 18 or 19 years, you're likely to have made enough of it differently, even if just to you, that such label tags will seem extra silly. They've crafted a career of dance music that has steadfastly avoided the prevailing dance paradigms-- house, techno-- of their day. For the last half-decade or so they've hovered around the Smalltown Supersound galaxy in an uncle-shaped saucer, steering artists like Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas, and Mungolian via remixes and collaborations. They specialize in lightweight bodyrock, not explicitly beachy but breezy enough to serve as a proxy.
Cellar Door is, shockingly, their first artist album, a 38-minute tart that wisely avoids the temptation to sum or define their career. (Though might I humbly request a collection of 12"s/remixes, friends?) Instead, it's a idly stitched collection of funk, disco, and pop so unassuming that its lack of coherence feels like a virtue. Eight-song records feel like they should have a center, something to talk and build around, but Cellar Door's keeps shifting, like light moving on the floor as the day progresses. The first single, "One for Kenny", is the album's most danceable track, candy disco that moves at the same pace as a comforting lava lamp. Halfway through it eases (there are no sharp movements on Cellar Door) into a gorgeous, jazzy piano line. It feels like someone draped a warm blanket over the track.
Two long vocal ballads-- "Shine" and the "The Way I Like It", both featuring Sally Rodgers-- are well-formed and tender. The latter, in particular, details an appreciative lust, thankful and tense until its beautiful, windswept second half. "Going Down" and "Love Hunter" employ ringing acoustic guitars, harmonic complexity coloring standard rhythms. "Le Wasuk"'s proggy, diffuse raggae is the only true misstep, and the Idjut Boys redeem themselves with sunset-beautiful "Jazz Axe", two minutes of honeyed electric guitar to close the album.
Churls will indict Cellar Door for a lack of coherence, but the Idjut Boys have built a career on a lack of coherence. Dance versions of these tracks are reportedly forthcoming, and they'll probably be great. Cellar Door, though, is a frozen moment, a triumph and an oddity. Instead of justifying or summarizing two decades of work, Tyler and McDonnell set them aside and come up with a concise, lovely album that, like a gentle tourist, takes only pictures, leaves only footprints.
