We are very happy to announce the release of Coloma’s new album, Love’s Recurring Dream. After years of friendship and mutual admiration, we have seized this chance to work together. Alongside Italic’s great affinity for electronic dance music in its multitude of forms, from techno to house to disco, we have always harboured a love for pop (attitudes), as exemplified by the likes of Steely Dan, Prefab Sprout or Pulp. The new Coloma album follows in this tradition and is an opportunity for us to reveal this aspect of our passion. We invite you to share in this world of perfect pop with us.
Coloma is the collaboration between singer/lyricist Rob Taylor and producer/composer Alex Paulick. Though originally from England, the two spent a period of musical education and discovery in Cologne, Germany, where Taylor is still based. Paulick flits between Berlin, the UK and his teenage hometown in California (a few miles from the Gold Rush town of Coloma). This geographical caprice is without doubt one key to the Coloma sound.
The fourth Coloma album is a song cycle with recurring harmonic and rhythmic themes. Lyrically, Love’s Recurring Dream is a narrative chronicling the phases of a romance, which symbolically runs over the course of a year. In the twelve songs, singer Rob Taylor follows the progress of the seasons from spring, summer and autumn to winter, with the implicit promise that a new spring will follow. For the recording, a group of musicians was assembled in San Francisco for improvisational sessions that make up the body of the album. Precise editing by producer Alex Paulick brings coherence to these spontaneous takes, with performances ebbing and flowing between rather loose and artificially tight. Under the influence of co-producer Bacchus Marteau, female backing vocals, harpsichords and vibraphones were added to the fold. Pristine mixes by Marcus Schmickler (Pluramon) ensure that this ambitious contrast of sounds remains delicately balanced.
In its entirety, Love’s Recurring Dream is a modern concept album featuring classic song writing and bold production, combined to create profound popular music. Prior to the release of Love’s Recurring Dream, Coloma have been rehearsing a six-piece band lineup for an initial string of live dates in 2009!
Coloma about Love’s Recurring Dream:
about the title:
Taylor: The title Love’s Recurring Dream is a play on Love’s Young Dream, a poem written in 1895 by Thomas Moore. Moore was describing falling in love for the first time. Love’s young dream became a turn of phrase denoting the innocence and the all-consuming nature of first love; a shortened version of the poem was set to music and sung by Shirley Temple in the 1930s. Love’s Recurring Dream is intended as an update on Moore’s original title, at once romantic and cynical, evoking the cycle of falling in love and then out again.
about cohesiveness:
Paulick: The use of recurring rhythmic, harmonic and melodic elements not only lends the album a cohesiveness, it also provided the musicians with a clear framework. I was looking for the kind of playing that is only there while the musicians haven’t quite learned the songs yet, when they’re still finding their way around. We were able to gather a lot of material that could be used throughout the entire album - a rather economical way to produce a record. Sometimes the tracks appear very much as they occurred in the studio; at other times, things have been cut up and are utilized very differently than initially intended – to create a feeling of controlled sloppiness.
about lyrics:
Taylor: The songs are linked lyrically by cross references. The same phrase will appear in two or three songs, possibly in slightly altered form. This reflects Alex’s recurring musical themes, and makes the twelve songs hold together as a whole work. The seasons and the natural world appear in the songs again and again. Mortality and the cycle of life and death are also themes: illness, blood, medicine and doctors make appearances; the narrator experiences palpitations, catches his death of cold, and so on. Then there is the core romantic content: the declarations of love and, later, disillusionment and loss. Together the songs tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, which is also a new beginning.
about woodwinds:
Paulick: With the woodwinds, I was looking for a feature that was emotive without being overly expressive. It’s also a texture that isn’t commonly found on pop records, which appealed to me, as did the challenge writing for oboes and clarinets. The main woodwind line was conceived to work in many different settings, and is “recycled” accordingly. The theme is presented in various inversions and transposed into different modes. The line becomes familiar, yet always works slightly differently.
Artist: Coloma, Title: Love’s Recurring Dream, Label: Italic, Format: CD, Cat. No.: ITA 083, Barcode: 880319335228, Release date: 23 February 2009, Distribution: Kompakt & Rough Trade, Genre: Chamber Pop, Artwork & sculpture: Min Stiller.
Tracklisting: 1. Four Seasons (5:13), 2. Strength of Wine (6:14), 3. Do You Know What It Is Yet? (3:06), 4. A Man Barely Alive (5:16), 5. These Days Are Ours (3:36), 6. Standstill (3:45), 7. Tired of Summer (4:19), 8. Blue Blood (5:30), 9. The Grateful Lover (3:20), 10. Should I Be Untrue (5:02), 11. Tonight Let Me Sleep (5:16), 12. Snow (5:08)
