WOEBOT

Stromba
Tales From The Sitting Room
Fat Cat

The heart of Stromba's project, a collective of "real musicians" plying "real grooves", must be quivering with affection for the original Post-Punk genii Liquid Liquid. This is the prism which inflects their exploration of In A-Silent-Way-inflected turkish delight like "Camel Spit", Konk-o-tronics like "Giddy Up", the dub of "Septic Skank" and the urban gamelan of "Swamp Donkey". It's a natural enough position to take in a moment still dominated by the Mutant Disco revival, if not a particularly inspired one.

"Tales From The Sitting Room" is the unfortunate victim of it's own best intentions. The lovingly crafted "real grooves" must be considerably more difficult to recreate for Stromba than for their cheeky Akai-wielding competitors in the Post-Post-Punk field. It's interesting to note that James Dyer and Tom Tyler, the core duo of this now expanded outfit, started out making music in just that way. However these grooves often lack the bite and punch of much sampled music. Stromba are worthy but not exactly gifted musicians and while the (terribly monikered) instrumentals do have a sense of being finely-crafted, they're sometimes a little limp. One wishes for more of the cravenly authentic rock energy of a track like "Blue Skin" to enliven proceedings, even to give a greater sense of purpose.

Again it's an ambivalent blessing that the tracks, though recorded in a living room sport solid dynamics and such a clean production. Ironically bad production values might have been more forgiving and have provided a better, rawer setting. The record's low-light must be it's brace of pep-less dub versions, the aforementioned "Septic Skank", "Swings and Roundabouts", and "Tickle Me Dub" leave one craving the Jamaica's own vertiginous bass-lines and plane-crash drum-fills. On the other hand, and the bright side, "Feed her Procedure" and "Perculator" both brim with invention and intention.