When Adam Bainbridge , AKA Kindness, dropped his cover of the Replacements seminal ode to teenage loneliness ‘Swingin’ Party’ in late 2009 the music world was in the throes of an invasion of what was dubbed “Chillwave”. endless scores of bedroom Brian Eno’s making sleepy laptop pop to automatic rave reviews. Shortly after “Swingin’ Party” started generating a buzz Bainbridge did the sensible thing and promptly vanished. Was it to work on this, his Debut long player, or simply to avoid any lazy comparisons to whatever Washed Out or Memory Tapes Kindness would have been sluggishly lumped in with?. The answer is debatable and now doesn’t matter as “World, You Need a Change of Mind” the eagerly awaited result of Two years of work with Famed French House legend Philippe Zdar of Cassius Fame is ready and Adam Bainbridge is again thrust into the limelight.
Taking in elements of Nile Rodgers-esque bass heavy funk and disco with downbeat Hercules and Love affair late night atmospherics “World…” starts with the airy synths and reverbed clipped beats of “SEOD”. With its throbbing bass and the mournful laments of “We never would have met, the beat brought us together” its a six minute excursion of smooth 80’s electro-pop, Neo-soul and Ariel Pink breathy haze. “SEOD” works towards its looped, saxophone led fadeout and is one that will serve as an insomniacs headphone choice for sleepless summer nights.
‘Swinging Party’ rears its head again and shows that even two years later its stands out as one of the better Replacements covers out there. bringing Westerbergs tale of youthful woe and friendship to new levels of emotional resonance thanks,in part, to an injection of Talking Heads pop and an effortlessly cool production job from Zdar that lets the song build on its steady, syncopated beat. In a time where a replacements cover song immediately brings to mind a flannel shirted, overly earnest U.S country ‘Rawker’ once again rolling out the corpse of ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ like it was the only song Paul Westerberg ever wrote, it’s still remains a refreshing yet faithful reinterpretaion of an 80’s alternative rock classic and highlights what a great songwriter Paul Westerberg was (like you needed to be reminded) and also a reminder that a great song works in any, or most, contexts.
Then something quite unfortunate happens. Firstly, Bainbridge has had the idea to reinvent Anita Dobson‘s ‘Anyone Can Fall in Love’ (the Eastenders theme for those of you who are lucky enough to not be in the know) as a po-faced piece of James Blake inspired mopestep. The result is painfully bad, There is pop culture irony and there is bad pop culture irony and this squarely falls into the latter camp. the concept of taking something that is so ingrained in British popular culture and trying to make something stylish is pointless. it will always be the TV theme to a bad British soap opera no matter who much mournful R’n’B crooning and “late night beats” you put over the top of it. It’s a huge misstep and sadly sets the tone for the remainder of this ten track affair.
The other negative aspect of this album is Bainbridge’s constant reliance on smothering certain song with aggressive slap bass. understandably a strong, heavy bassline is responsible for some of the classics of house and disco but the unrelenting use of it throughout this album overpowers songs and drowns out any subtle nuance of sound. On the 1:52 funk banger of “Get Up” it works well but on first single ‘Cyan’ and album closer ‘Doigsong’ its the sound of Alan Partridge Air Bass-ing to Gary Numan‘s ‘Music For Chameleons’ in his static home.
It robs the aforementioned songs of any breathing room and spark that would lift “World..” into something special and instead leaves the album with its unshakable bad aftertaste that stays with the listener and sours other tracks such as the mantronix/Herbie Hancock inspired ‘That’s alright’ which starts as a welcome palette cleanser after the solemn, flaccid droop of “House” and ends up sounding like the soundtrack to a 80’s advert for deodorant.
The overall feeling is of bewilderment and confusion. Did Adam Bainbridge really vanish from the musical radar for this? A record that seems too much of a calculated, sterile attempt at recreating his record collection?. Sure, ‘Swingin’ Party’ is great but that was over two years ago and if that is the best track on an album of original material recorded long after that one song then the overall feeling is one of disappointment.
“World, You Need a Change of Mind” is an ultimately confusing, anti-climatic piece of work. Few and far between Musical highlights only serving to emphasize the sense of disappointment that this could have been a lot better. Maybe another two years of regrouping and honesty is needed for Kindness.
[Rating:3]
Released date 19th of March.
Stream: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/mar/12/kindness-world-need-change-mind
