New West Records – 10 Sep 2021
Isolation breeds a defiantly summery soundtrack on Pokey Lafarge's newest album.
For his latest studio album, In the Blossom of their shade, Pokey Lafarge set out to craft the ‘perfect summer afternoon soundtrack.' As an artist Lafarge typically embodies the roving troubadour spirit of an earlier rootsy Americana. On this release, caught in an enforced state of stasis owing to the pandemic he was unable to facilitate such wanderlust. In response he has produced music fashioned around a globetrotting form of escapism and nostalgia. This impetus is apparent not just in its incorporation of Calypso, swung tropical rhythms and Hawaiian guitar tones but also subject matter. At times this is borne out in a clearly stated longing for foreign climes as in “Rotterdam”, at others it expressed as a more intangible determination to seize the day and make the most of a bad situation.
It is this defiant optimism to keep on going that propels the album opener “get it fore its gone.” From the first few seconds of slightly psych-tinged noise the song then develops into a breezy affair with a scratchy upbeat rhythm. There is an urgency smuggled into the laid-back drawl of the vocal style with the insistent repetition of the phrase ‘later is always too late.' Second track “Mi Ideal” amplifies the tropical undertones explored in the previous song. Its lilting croon feels tailor made to accompany an afternoon spent lolling in the sand, with a tall drink in hand and an eye lazily scanning the shoreline.
“Rotterdam” opens with the fatalistic assertion, ‘ruin comes to beauty almost inevitably' and comments more directly on current affairs. It contrasts the alarming situation in America with the less tumultuous city in the Netherlands. The clap along rhythm and the jazzy guitar parts in the instrumental sections are a highlight. There are some further searching moments of existential pondering couched in pretty instrumentation on “To Love or be alone”, where the lyrics muse that, ‘I don't think God is listening.‘ The song itself has the sparing but effective inclusion of piano trills and a guitar tone reminiscent of a more subdued track by The Shadows.
The playful braggadocio of “Killing Time” draws heavily on a Doo-Wop structure with its barber shop backing vocals and the dum di dums of the lead part . The various boasts are underscored by another fine piano section and a simple back beat. Of the various amusing lines I think, ‘I fought a war on two fronts didn't even have a gun‘ was my favourite. “Goodnight Goodbye (Hope Not Forever)” rounds off the album. The mood is a little like that of the band playing on as the ship sinks with a sunset on the horizon. A shuffle-y beat and harmonic guitar notes bring out the wistful sentiments of the track before it closes with a whistle.
In The Blossom Of Their Shade is much like a sun-drunk sojourn through an imagined paradisaical idyll. Yet it is a beautiful vista at the edge of which a darkness creeps onto the horizon. In this ensuing tension Lafarge has managed to tap into a wellspring of positive defiance. The result is a collection of songs that may jump around a little stylistically but capture the leisurely haze of a summers afternoon perfectly.