Album review

The Do

A Mouthful

Paris 

16/01/2008 - 

Call it a sign of the times, but French-Finnish duo The Do generated the first big buzz around their sound when their song On My Shoulders was used as a soundtrack to a television ad. Dan Levy and Olivia B Merilahtin have now confirmed their potential on A Mouthful, a fascinating first album featuring 14 quirky pop tracks injected with hints of rap, electro and film scores.

The Do have no qualms about wearing their musical influences on their sleeve. Take a first listen to A Mouthful and you’ll get a taste of The Cardigans on Stay (Just a Little Bit More), a flavour of Blonde Redhead (the way Olivia’s vocals touch those warbling high notes) and Cocorosie (the duo’s playful childlike universe). But the overriding influence that runs throughout The Do’s debut album is Iceland’s alternative pop princess Björk. The Do share Björk’s off-the-wall originality and have taken a leaf out of the Icelandic diva’s music book, smashing down barriers between genres to forge their own unique sound.

Dan Levy, The Do’s talented multi-instrumentalist, and Finnish singer Olivia B Merilahtin originally hooked up two years ago to work together on the soundtrack to a feature film. Their creative partnership blossomed from there and the duo went on to write the soundtracks for two other movies, François Rotger’s The Passenger and Christophe Ali’s Camping sauvage. They have also created stage music for a number of contemporary dance troupes.

Currently billed as two of the freshest faces in the music world, The Do appear to be on a mission to revitalise and reinvigorate French music. And they dare to experiment with a little of everything on their debut album. Dan and Olivia serve up an unexpected  flute-and-percussion intro on Playground Hustle, dabble in Finnish on the ballad-like Unissasi Laulelet and even include a cheeky punch-your-fist-in-the-air pop-rock anthem (in the form of Aha). And don’t be lulled into a false sense of calm by the sleepy vocals and weary guitar riffs on At Last, just when you’re not looking The Do hit back with the feisty hip-hop-style Queen Dot Kong!

While A Mouthful may suffer from the occasional drop in rhythmic tension, The Do’s debut album gets our official five-star rating on the music menu. Like a master chef, Dan Levy spices every single track on A Mouthful to perfection, stuffing as many unusual instruments as possible into his musical mix. The Do’s quirky pop-rock sound went down extremely well with the crowd at the last Transmusicales festival in Rennes where The Do put on one hell of a show (considering that they had only played some thirty gigs up to that point!) So take our advice, grab yourselves A Mouthful of The Do. This album is one of the tastiest morsels of the year so far!

The Do A Mouthful (Wagram) 2008

Ludovic  Basque