Regardless of the time of year, Pomplamoose (real life couple Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn) are a lot of fun.
Their music, which is released to fans via an innovative patronage system called Patreon, merrily skips from genre to genre, drawing in jazz, ’80s synth pop, big band sounds to name just a few influences, all of them bundled up in exuberant pop music defined by warm, rich harmonies, an ear for a jaunty melody and a zest for musical experimentation that sees their songs often end up places you didn’t see them going.
In the all-too-obvious, telegraphed-in-advance world of modern mass-produced music, their vision and sound is a welcome point of difference, a chance to savour music which while still robustly and professionally written and played, is playful and delightful.
They have attracted some criticism as a result that they are a novelty act or not taking their music seriously, assertions that all ignore the fact that this talented musical duo live and breathe the music they play, constantly searching for new ways to re-invent the pop wheel, to take songs both original and those first performed by others, and deliver in ways that will surprise and delight fans who know they won’t be getting music as usual.
So with that kind of inventive mindset informing everything they do, it stands to reason that Pomplamoose wouldn’t record just any old Christmas EP; and so they have not, taking original songs and a few classics and infusing them with their trademark love of upsetting the musical carts to engagingly great effect.
Case very much in point is “Deck the Halls”, a warm, uplifting holiday classic that makes its way onto many a Christmas album.
There is nothing wrong with any of the many versions out there, all of which accent a convivial, cheery atmosphere of neighbourly togetherness, accented by the big band-influenced sound that is used by everyone, and this is an inexact description, because it “sounds like Christmas”; but they all sound pretty much the same, with the only distinguishing characteristic the voice of the artist in question.
Again this is not a criticism, I love that sound and my festive music library is full to the brim with it, but there’s something inherently thrilling about a classic like “Deck the Hills”, now in the hands of musically-inventive souls like Pomplamoose, suddenly veering into light psychedelia, the airy, ephemeral synth work wafting in and around Nataly Dawn’s pleasingly mellifluous voice.
The same festive musical road less travelled marks out “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” which starts out in all its familiar fey, tinkling glory before growing ever more muscular and robust and yes Nine Inch Nails-lite; it summons images of Tinkerbell and her more masculine booted counterpart dancing an altogether unorthodox pas de deux, of a kind likely not envisaged by The Nutcracker’s original composer and choreographers, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov respectively.
But it works, is pleasing to the ears and achieves both an evocative summoning of the ghosts of Christmas past and of the present racing to embrace a far more grungy yet no less festive future.
“Jingle Bells” is far less daring musically but Pomplamoose succeed admirably in playing up both the bouncy melody and sense of playful abandonment to the pleasures of the season that so delightfully characterise this song.