Keiron Phelan and Peace Signs: Hobby Jingo
Gare du Nord Records
Cheekily pitched as “the summer album that never was,” Hobby Jingo is the engaging sophomore outing from Keiron Phelan and his Peace Signs collective. While it's hard to imagine anything could shift our collective focus away from pandemic-related matters, pop songs about candy floss, cinnamon, and Eurovision might well do the trick; Phelan's recording at the very least offers a welcome reprieve from the dispiriting news cycle. As carefree as the title appears, the two-word term by definition refers to a situation both problematic and precarious and therefore anything but copacetic.
No matter: the thirteen song set—Phelan originals plus two eclectic covers—is easy to get lost in when the UK-based raconteur's music suggests connections, however tangential, to everyone from Donovan, Pulp, and Burt Bacharach to The Beatles, Style Council, and Richard Hawley. Though melody's paramount, the songs cut a wide stylistic swath, with some harder, some lighter, and others flirting with bossa nova and MOR balladry. Complementing Phelan's warm baritone and flute is a rich instrumental design provided by Jenny Brand (clarinet, backing vocals), James Stringer (grand piano, clavinet, Fender Rhodes, string synth), Jack Hayter (violin, pedal steel), Ben Kelly (tuba), Thom Punton (trumpet), Giles Barrett (bass), and Ian Button (drums).
Phelan's a clever wordsmith, but you'll likely focus more on the arrangements and melodies when they're so arresting. It's little touches that make the listen so satisfying: whereas pedal steel enhances the title track's breezy swing and the dramatic ballad “Break,” clarinet adds to the swooning lilt of “You Never Put A Man Upon The Moon.” The combination of flute and pedal steel makes for three blissful minutes when “Cinnamon Synthesis” arrives, and the same could be said of the clarinet-flute pairing animating “Sixth Form Poetry.” In the covers department, Aphrodite's Child's piano-heavy “Break” receives an appropriately heartfelt rendering, as does Bill Fay's set-ending tearjerker “Goodnight Stan.”
Some of the material's mellow enough you could imagine Perry Como singing it, but there's nothing objectionable about that. Furthermore, Phelan smartly offsets the laid-back content with the exuberant pop of “Candy Floss Hair,” the raw stomp'n'strut of “New Best Friend,” and the beer-hall oompah of “What Kaiser Did.” All things considered, anyone who cottoned to 2018's Peace Signs will probably have much the same reaction to its successor.October 2020