As September Song, Steve Hogg and John Douglass have enjoyed quite a career. Having started out in the 1980s on their own ‘umbrella’ label, Sons Of Art, as Kid Sinister, before signing at various times to Atlantic Records, Kitchenware, and EMI, before revising SOA in 2005 as a platform for their myriad projects past and present.
This latest project under the September Song moniker has been a long time in coming, devised back in the summer of 2018 and completed in the summer of 2021; ‘post Brexit, post-Trump and pre-pandemic’, as their liner notes explain. It started off as ‘a reflective on global events, but ended up introspective once more’.
I’ve long maintained that the universal lies in the personal, and while this is generally meant as an observation on the human condition, perhaps there’s a wider context to consider also, in that it’s impossible to escape global events and not have some reaction that’s personal – by which I suppose I also mean emotional – on a certain level.
The extent to which this comes through on ‘Two Miles Out’, I’m not so sure. There are contemplative lyrics delivered in a contemplative style that’s easy on the ear, with rich harmonies and well-considered arrangements that are subtle and far more detailed than a cursory listen would suggest.
‘I made her sad / I made her cry / I made her laugh / I made her smile’ they croon against a backdrop of luscious strings, soft piano and mellow sax on the album’s first song, ‘Eleanor Knew’. It’s a bit Style Council, and it sets the tone for their mid-tempo, piano-led easy-listening set of songs.
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It’s pretty smooth, slick, jazzy, and laid-back. ‘New York City Getaway’ sings of escape, but it’s more Sinatra swing than anything, while ‘Kings and Queens’ adds a country twist to things. It’s all very nice… and that’s kind of it, really. It bounces and swings along easily, hues of smooth soulfulness are delivered with faultless musicianship. Nothing leaps out and grabs you by the throat, but then, when everything is relentlessly tense, maybe the best musical medicine is something to chill to.
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