Sing Sing - Sing-Sing andI

Mon 14th Nov, 2005 in Music Reviews

Sing-Sing and I is the result of years of struggle and sweat for Lisa O’Neill and Emma Anderson, who make up indie-pop band Sing-Sing, as they bounced from label to label eventually producing this album with the proceeds of donations from fans and sales of a single they paid for themselves. The results were well worth it, Sing Sing and I is very easy listening.

The album is very sweet sounding, lyrical with a romantic feel running through the whole album. The song writing captures the essence of everyday life for a woman, looks at the relationships in our lives, from the romantic to friendships to the relationship with ourselves.

Lover is a really catchy song with a nice, punchy vocal melody. It sets the tone for the album and introduces the band’s sound nicely. The instrumentation is simple behind this track, focussing on the melody, as does the rest of the album. There is a simplicity about the album that is very appealing and creates an atmosphere of warmth.

Come, Sing Me A Song is bright and springy that reminds me of Belle & Sebastian kind of music. This song looks at celebrity obsession and the sweet sound of the music contrasts well with the theme, the way obsession of any kind starts out innocently in most cases. There is no doubt that this could be confused with a love song.

Mister Kadili is a song that came about after reading some of the African spiritual healing brochures that Lisa kept finding in her letterbox and Mister Kadali actually does a voice over on the track. Mr Kadali apparently uses his powers to heal broken hearts, impotence and all matters spiritual. There is some interesting acoustic guitar at the start and the voiceover is perfect for the song. Ruby, also looks at spirituality as Lisa looks at the horoscope of a friend’s baby daughter and predicts the future for her. Very girlie indeed but there was a more synthesiser and an electric guitar sound throughout, making it sound a bit different from the rest of the album, in a good way.

A Modern Girl is the next song and it looks at whether the pressure to get married and have kids has actually improved or even changed since the liberation movement. I like the lyric “when we find we have a choice, there is nothing to select”, very true indeed.  

I Do follows this theme as it looks at the relevance of marriage as all their friends get hitched. This is a soft song with a punchier chorus but still has that wistful feeling and sweet vocal melody that weaves through the whole album. There is a great vocal bridge in the middle that really draws your attention.

Going Out Tonight I liked straight away as it sounded a bit different and was a bit darker. Lyrically looking at the insidious drink spiking danger after the producer’s wife had a nasty experience where she passed out after just one glass of wine, convinced it had been drugged. The middle section is my favourite part on the album, it is recorded with a pulsing sound in the back and distorted vocals like you are underwater or barely conscious.

Unseen is like the companion piece to Come, Sing Me A Song as it is about an obsessed fan who gets too close for comfort. The songs all seem to have been written with purpose and a goal in mind and it has created an album that holds together well and each song compliments the song before it.

The Time has Come is a rite of passage song, where as a woman moving from your young adulthood into womanhood you look at your friendships and decide which ones add to your life and which ones drain it. The chorus is sung by a group of women, it sounds like a bunch of friends singing, and even though Lisa and Emma are singers not all of their friends are, clearly, but it adds to the ambience of the song. The mandolin was a nice touch too.

The last two tracks, When I Was Made and A Kind of Love round out the album well. When I Was Made is about the circumstances around Emma’s birth and her mother keeping it secret after the father turned his back but how she has grown into her life. The final song A Kind Of Love is a remake of a song Lisa did with her old band The Mad Professor, from a lost Lovers Rock album. They decided to re-record it and see if it still stood up as a song and I think that it is my favourite song on the album.

All in all British indie-pop at its finest. A very pretty album with some really sweet high notes on it.