Imagine if back in the glorious days of the early to mid 1980s a bunch of euro-pop/synth-pop type musicians discovered a time machine and flew forward to the scary reality of today. Whilst there they managed to get a good deal of exposure to modern dance/trance/ambient style club music before they buggered off back to their own time line with a couple of modern mixing boards, drum sequencers, keyboards and the like. After they had been back long enough for the whole cynical modern vibe to wear off, so they could slip back into the naïve beauty that was the mid eighties, they put the equipment to good use and knocked out a perfect hybrid album.
That album might very well sound like New York City’s 46bliss debut CD ‘Pistachio Home’. I can’t remember an album that is both so hauntingly familiar and yet breathtakingly new in its own way as well. It really is as if they had managed to find the pure pop essence of early synth-pop and brought it bang into modern dance music, without the end result seeming lame, forced or anything but invigorating. It certainly helps that the three musicians involved know how to construct very strong pop songs, songs that have varied and interesting harmonies over fresh and immaculately constructed music. The musicians in question are David Cooper who provides a very non-dance music voice as well as doing most of the keyboards and programming. Jack Freudenheim brings his considerable rhythm talents to the varied electronic drums and sequences; he also by the way is the man behind the very cool piece of music software, Sounder. Rounding of the group is Clare Veniot who provides the female vocals to compete with and compliment Mr. Cooper.
The thirteen tracks here take up just under an hour, and consist of eleven originals and two covers. Maybe the greatest compliment any band could ever receive is the fact that they cover a Beatles track and it doesn’t stand out as being head and shoulders above the rest of the album. Re-read that sentence and think about it, how many minor-label bands out there can slip in a track by the undisputed kings of pop music, and not have it weigh heavily against the rest of the tracks. Kind of like putting Andre the Giant on a see-saw with a three year old on the other end.
The song in question is ‘Across The Universe’, which is even more interesting as they tackle it with so much more style and class than the recent, horrid, bland, insipid version by little miss rich and anorexic Fiona Apple. Whilst her attempt to update the track with a modern dance vibe came of as soulless and predictable, 46bliss treat it with enough reverance to keep the feel, but not so much to not make it their own. It also helps that the three musicians in question are infinitely more interesting than Ms. Apple, although I doubt they could pull of that whole underage girl in bra and panties thang.
The other cover is Melanie’s ‘Lay Down (Candles In The Rain), which is again a startlingly good version of a very good song. Their own tracks are universally good from the opening ‘Freedom Run’, with its real 80’s feel in terms of rhythm and vocal pattern, to the obvious single ‘Boy Behind The Veil’, which I defy you not to like. Next up is ‘O Mayday’ with Clare’s haunting vocals over sweeping lite-techno music, accompanied by world music style chanting, oh if only Enya was this interesting. So here we are three tracks in and they are all beauties.
I could go on track by track, but why bother, just take my word they are all beauties. Check out ‘Anything’ which is Beatles like in its pure pop beauty, or ‘Cura Animarum’ which is the best non-English song I have heard this year. ‘Hallelujah’ is a club anthem waiting to happen, larger than life with excellent use of layering musical sounds and styles.
46bliss are the type of band who can take club music out to the masses without destroying its true heart. They are also a band that are taking the best of the European dance pioneers of the 1980s in a way I really don’t here anyone else doing. It is an album good enough to stand up alongside the likes of ‘Joy Division’, 'New Order’, ‘Depeche Mode’, ‘Eurythmics’ and their ilk, yet it is still undeniably a product of the very end of the 1990s.
Seriously I recommend just about everyone check out this album, if you like pop music, period, you will love this album.

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