Mydy Rabycad
Glamtronic
Indies Scope Distribution, 2015
Frankly, as much as I am not dancing tango or anything else at the moment which is overdue, way overdue, even I will admit that dancing is good for your health and your soul, and in the case of Mydy Rabycad’s Glamtronic, dancing is contagious, even in a chair, if not mandatory, and at that, it should be. And even chair dancing may be impossible after a while as you are compelled to rise and move uncontrollably.
The combination is quite incredible and listenable, on repeat, which this album received several months back. And still, happily, this album is difficult to get out of my fertile imagination where dancers are flying and dancing with each other to infinite heights around me. “Don’t Play This Song,” would immediately become a criminal offense in an anti-music dictatorship. To put it tritely, I dare you to not play it. It’s infinitely playable and danceable. While I generally don’t like to quote from one-sheets, this is just too prosaic not to share. “The boys (Mikuláš Pejcha, Nèro Scartch, and Jan Drábek) combined their acoustic instruments with the powerful sound of electronic mixes and beats while Žofie [Dařbujánová] started to conquer the solar systems with her voice.” They have, and ˌsupercalifragilisticexpialidociousally, so has Žofie, the lead vocalist.
Does it have hints of Glam, not the “Glam” that was forced upon us in the 80’s from the likes of Cinderella that I argued with some foolish friends at work once upon a time, but the original real-deal from Bowie and Bolan’s T. Rex? Yes, yes it does. Even so, the music somehow manages to fuse Glam with some Black American Music, otherwise known as Swing Jazz, that’s been updated for the here and now, and in a wholly evolutionary fashion, rather than the forced versions of Brian Setzer a few years back.
Though adequate words fail me, and gushing would seem insincere in a few circles, every track invites such enthusiasm. However, there is one standout that “feels” like a sampling of an older jazz track, and it may be. I invite you to listen to “I Got a Man,” and make your own determination. Even so, Žofie’s voice blends in nicely. While the album is predominately swing, this in a microscopic way, lightly verges into something more ethereal and universal.
Am I crushing on the lead vocalist? So I am guilty, obviously. It isn’t the first time that has happened. There is something about a voice that welcomes you into their world and invites you to imagine a life within that world. I invite you to also get this one stuck in your music player as mine has for the last several months. They’re all sing-alongable, too, and while “Belly Button Nation” invites comparisons of tube tops, it also invites a bubbling reminiscence out of thin air, the horns and frivolity of, The Year Without a Santa Claus’ “Heat Miser”. Oh, the musical machinations of a obsessive music nerd never cease.
RadioMike
7 March 2016