Debut album from the Boo Hewerdine/Vlado Nosal collaboration, Hotel Art.  Guaranteed to charm.

Release Date:  Out Now

Label: Bruuder Records

Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital

A FAMILIAR PAIRING

Our friend, Boo Hewerdine is quite the man for a long-distance collaboration.  Just a couple of weeks ago, we enthused over Paper Tigers, the new album from State Of The Union – the project that Glasgow-based Boo pursues with Cambridge adoptee Brooks Williams – and noted that the pair aren’t particularly close neighbours.  Well; it turns out that the 585 miles that separate Glasgow and Cambridge is just a short hop – or, at least it is when it’s compared to the almost 1,400 between Glasgow and Bratislava, home city of Boo’s Hotel Art collaborator, Vlado Nosal.

We’ve come across this pairing before, when we had a taste of the potency of their combined talents with a couple of tracks from Boo’s 2021 lockdown EP, Singularities.  Back then, we were mightily impressed by the substance of the couple’s songs on the EP, British Summertime and Hotel Art,  The good news is that both of those songs are included on the duo’s debut album together, along with a bundle of equally enjoyable gems.  Elevator Music is an enchanting album.

Boo and Vlado first met back in 2015 or so, when Vlad attended a Hewerdine gig in a Croydon pub.  Vlad followed up that initial introduction by asking Boo if he’d care to become his mentor.  The pairing went much further than a mere teacher/pupil relationship as both Boo and Vlado recognized that they had a natural understanding of each other’s musical motivations and interests.  When the duo first got together, they’d imagine that they were writing and performing songs for a band called Hotel Art and, now, that dream has become a reality.  It all goes to show that, if a match is made in heaven, distance and age (Vlad, at 31, is half the age of Boo) are immaterial.

THE MAGICAL WORLD OF BOO HEWERDINE

Having been long ago introduced to the magical world of Boo Hewerdine and the mellow, contemplative – often quirky – songs that are his stock-in-trade, I was surprised – pleasantly so – by the gritty raunch of Raised On Television, the song that gets Elevator Music off to a blistering start.  It’s a slice of 70s-styled rock at its best, awash with grinding electric guitars, tinkling piano and a solid, crisp, drum sound, all providing the background for clear, slightly sleazy-sounding, vocals.  It’s an eye-opening start and it’s a great song, and it paves the way for ten more songs that are far closer to the usual Boo Hewerdine style…

Back in 2021, I suggested that British Summer Time was a reliable indicator of the potency of the Hewerdine/Nosal partnership.  It turns out that I was right, as we shall see, and I’m still knocked out by that song’s opening couplet: “One day, we’ll all be obsolete – go the way of VHS and BetaMax.”  It’s a wonderful song, based around an easy-going rhythm, sympathetic guitars and organ and a tender vocal from Boo and it establishes a template that is followed pretty closely for the rest of the album.

High Fashion follows along the same route as acoustic guitars and harmony vocals provide a gentle accompaniment to Boo’s pleading vocal and discrete dashes of trumpet add to the song’s calming vibe.  I’ve often noticed a McCartney flavour to Boo Hewerdine’s songs and that flavour is particularly prevalent in the contemplative How to Escape Your Past.  The instrumentation is pared right back to a soft drumbeat and light strums of guitar, which invite the listener to take maximum pleasure from the delightful vocals.

AGATHA CHRISTIE IMAGERY

“Take a shot of absinthe and a glass of champagne – you’ll feel as good as new,” is the advice offered in the opening lines of Death In The Afternoon.  Packed with 1930s Agatha Christie imagery, it’s a light, jazzy number, complete with a vibes (or is it a glockenspiel?) solo and it’s utterly charming.  And the period feel is retained for Haunted House, a soft, acoustic song in which Boo’s enticing vocals detract from the slightly grisly subject matter, until the spooky synth solo brings us back to reality.

Reminiscent of 10cc in both form and content, Sunshine sounds like a pleasant, poppy ‘getaway’ song before the lyrics, which reference fake i/ds and the KGB, issue a potent reminder that things aren’t always as they seem.  And the lyrics to Hotel Art – the song that’s provided the duo with their name and which also featured on the Singularities EP – will surely resonate with anyone who has had to spend a disproportionate chunk of their existence in hotel rooms when they say: “Room 101 – here I am again.  Could be anywhere; could be now or then.”

Boo works his way through an imagined bucket list for Pittsburgh, a song in which he bemoans (or celebrates…) that he’s: never watched The Steelers play, never taken cocaine, never been a grifter, a counterfeiter, a bank robber or a gambler.  He probably won’t get around to doing any of them.  But then again… he might.

GUARANTEED TO CHARM

Country-flavoured and featuring some tasty lap steel licks, Tony is an enigmatic song with yet another excellent Boo vocal.  A few more listens will be necessary before I’m able to work out the identity of the Tony of the song’s title, but I love the discrete chuckle at the end of the song that suggests that the mystery is deliberate.

The spirit of Elevator Music is, perhaps, best encapsulated by the album’s dreamy, soothing title track.  It’s a song that describes the pleasure to be gained from riding an elevator – not a subject that you’ll regularly come across – and it’s a thoroughly charming closing track.  Wistful, with, once again, a 1930s flavour, Boo takes the lead vocal as he sings: “Elevator music that plays as we drift away… could be anywhere” and things get really dreamlike as guest vocalist, Hafdís Huld (of Icelandic electronica outfit GusGus) repeats the “Heaven’s up there” coda, over and over again.

We’ve always suspected that Boo Hewerdine and Vlado Nosal had a stunning album in them.  Elevator Music proves that that expectation was justified.  Elevator Music is guaranteed to charm.

Watch the official video to Elevator Music, the album’s title track, here:

Hotel Art online: Instagram / Bandcamp

Boo Hewerdine Online: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / YouTube

Vlado Norsel online: Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp

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