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Bauer | Can't Stop Singing

CD, Partners In Crime

Tekst: Ariën Rasmijn

Publicatiedatum: 01 december 2000

You're having the afternoon off on a beautiful, breezy day in autumn. Forever caught in a playful loop, or just for as long as you want. Berend Dubbe and Sonja van Hamel locked themselves up in their Amsterdam home all year to perfect their game and the result is the kind of smart, funny, melodious and well-crafted laid back sampledelica Sean O'Hagan would kill for nowadays. No sophomore blues here, it's all progress and we all know that's rare if your first record is as good as his debut "On The Move". "Can't Stop Singing" is more coherent, less busy than its predecessor and the songs are even better (more traditional in structure, without giving anything up in terms of humour and surprise, both lyrically and esthetically). Dubbe even manages to sing better but the true revelation here is his partner in life and crime Sonja van Hamel. It's clear that Bauer is a two-person project from now on and the overall effect is all the better for it. She's the calm ying to his all-over-the-place yang, it seems. Almost every song works (they could've left out "Feel The New Wave" and maybe also "Fan", despite the brilliant sample at the end of it), the album as a whole works. Bauer is what a levelheaded smile sounds like so maybe it's time to put those lounge records away. If you ask me it won't last long before the rest of the world catches up to these forerunners of the next, bigger wave of quality Dutch bands (Coparck, Suimasen, Seesaw) in the wake of Solex and Arling & Cameron.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/bauer/can-t-stop-singing/198/
Meer Bauer op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/bauer