There's a moment about halfway through Paco's debut album, This Is Where We Live, when all of the musical elements finally fall into place: In the chorus of "Let It Go", after vocalist Dominique Durand has sung the verse, multi-instrumentalist Andy Chase joins her unexpectedly, singing a slight, plaintive melody around her words. It's a nice touch, not just because Durand and Chase are wife and husband, nor because they have a history together in the band Ivy, but because all the possibilities of this side project finally come into view. This simple, short duet is a turning point on an album that, at least for its first half, feels like the band's potential may never be realized. In addition to Durand and Chase, Paco includes studio engineer Gary Maurer and guitarist Michael Hampton who build on Ivy's sound by texturing Durand's vocals with dense, atmospheric keyboards and programmed drums.
Side projects, of course, can be sweeping successes (like, say, The New Pornographers), capturing the lightning-in-a-bottle dynamic of musicians working together for the first and maybe the only time. Or they can be instantly forgettable (like, say, King Biscuit Time), lacking the chemistry or a distinct enough sound to justify a new line-up. As it begins, This Is Where We Live falls squarely into the latter category. Songs like the ambitiously titled leadoff instrumental "Satie" sound so ephemeral that they dissipate as the notes emerge from the speakers, while others never seem fully developed, as if they need a second draft. "Adore" hinges on an awkward chorus and trite rhymes, while "Shaded" sounds like an ill-advised cover of another band's song: Durand's soft-focus vocals, which are perfect for conveying Ivy's urbane casualness, simply cannot believably sell lyrics as dark and cynical as "Everything, everyone/ Every word you've ever heard is a lie/ Don't buy the dream."
After this initial awkwardness, however, Paco begin to loosen up considerably on "Let It Go", playing off one another with more confidence and achieving a unified direction. It almost sounds like they recorded the album in tracklist order, as they become increasingly dynamic and eclectic with each song. "Who Do You Think You Are?" is a moodier and slightly darker version of the shimmering pop Ivy nearly perfected, while the music on "Thin" creates a nice summer's-day groove out of Hampton's reggae-inflected rhythms. Whereas Durand sounds a bit sheepish near the album's beginning, she gives one of the most accomplished performances of her career on "Promises", where Hampton successfully connects his textured music to her voice, neither drowning her out nor completely abandoning her. The bouncy final track, "Never", which evokes the ethereality of Air, provides the album with a soaring outro in Hampton's George Harrison-style slide guitar.
Though the promising second half of This Is Where We Live cannot quite compensate for its flat first, this shortcoming is clearly not a matter of too-little-too-late, but a question of what-next. If Paco can continue this trajectory, they could conceivably drop the "side" from the project on their next release.
