Wee See Limes 2021
Soundtracking the summer, Brusselian sculptor of aural delights slows down and crawls for cover.
Last Summer On The Beach
Every vacation feels well-deserved in our post-pandemic period so, while 2020’s "You've Been Unboxing Gilles Snowcat" seems more like a dream of a future rest in hindsight, this single signals a real rest undertaken by the Belgian musician who’s never rested on his laurels when there was a way forward. Which is why the song mentioned in the record’s subtitle and originally found on the preceding album has all the rights to present itself in a very much languorous manner – as a pleasure-oozing reggae rather than a rocksteady number it used to be, half-whispered over a caressing psychedelic undercurrent interspersed with a series of murmuring guitar solos, or a vibes waves in an alternative version.
Teasing, yes – but there’s a freshly composed “Lemon Body Scrub” to funk up the drift and make the beachgoers shake their booty to the groove of a rubber bass that’s wrapped in scintillating ivories before jazzy riffs float to the surface, bringing a couple of cover cuts with them. And if Eddy Grant’s “Blue Wave” is expectedly effervescent in Gilles’ tender reading, the same can’t be said about his delivery of COLD CHISEL’s “Just How Many Times” which has been transmogrified, via deceptively minimal change, from a bluesy ballad into a piece of Gallic pining, so typical for Snowcat.
Covering many aspects of summer in only four cinematic tunes isn’t easy, especially when the sea calls, yet he nailed it.
***3/4
