There seems to be a trend at the moment for people getting into “eighties” music, almost to the point that the term has become a genre in its own right (as if a decade of music can be given the same label). So, while people spend their hard-earned cash watching tribute bands play songs by Rick Astley and Olivia Newton-John, and buying second-hand Culture Club records, I stand on the sidelines and shake my head.
Why? Because the ’80s didn’t actually sound like that. Not for many of us, and certainly not to me. For me, it was Smiths records and Waterboys gigs, it was watching The Wondersuff in a muddy festival field, and it was songs that sounded like “Morning By Morning.”
Le Concorde brilliantly captures the light yet lush pop sounds and post-punk freedom of a swirl of bands that coalesced into small, indie labels such as Postcard and Sarah Records. (Post punk music is also a misunderstood term, it doesn’t have to mean overly earnest music made through the wailing of guitars and the gnashing of teeth.) To that end, “Morning By Morning” feels like time travel, like an echo of the more delicate end of the growing independent scene, a cool and cultured corner of those formative years. It has made my day.
Stephen Becker, the man behind the moniker, calls his music “sophistipop,” and I can’t think of a better term for such soulful, serene, and seductive music.
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