RECOMMENDED RECORD: Soaked Oats: Working Title (Dot Dash/digital outlets)

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 RECOMMENDED RECORD: Soaked Oats: Working Title (Dot Dash/digital outlets)

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes on heavyweight vinyl with an insert lyric sheet.

Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .

Although Elsewhere doesn't review EPs (too many full-length albums clamouring for attention) we do sometimes listen to them, especially if the artist is local and making something of a splash.

Dunedin's Soaked Oats were certainly getting attention a few years ago when their Sludge Pop EP came our way. We'd missed their 2017 debut album Stone Fruit Melodies.

And while that EP was interesting – a word which suspends judgement – it sounded to these ears unfocused although obviously suggested a band with alt.pop potential: a little bit VU/slacker, nice melodies and fine musicianship but overall a bit meandering and in places sounded as if they were fearful of being accused of making too much effort.

Some of those comments could well be directed at this album which also slips from place to place (a bit Beta Band/early Beck then alt.folk, rap, bouncy synth-pop et al.).

It's telling that at bandcamp the description includes “alternative, hip-hop, rap, alternative rock, folk, indie and surf rock”. And “Dunedin”, as if that is a genre.

We call that The Connan Mockasin ADHD Effect round our way.

However – perhaps because of the longer duration than an EP – this album actually comes off rather well over the 10-song span.

There is, on repeat play especially, some cool pop here (the catchy Beta/Beck-like The Way It Works, the snaking Behind Their Years, the alt.white-funk folk of Headline Opinion), a strangely engrossing and languidly Lou Reed-influenced ballad in Something which has an identifiable Pacific quality, a touch of equally quiet blip-pop electronica on the speak-sing Pink Beach (featuring airy vocals and violin by Motte) and the downbeat folk of Daemon which stretches ambitiously past the seven minute mark.

Working Title frontloads the pop – and Divided Symbol with Church (of award-winning Church & AP) rapping, which sounds more obligatory than essential.

But the real strengths here come in the second half from Something onward where the mood becomes lowkey and consistent.

And to these ears Simple Pleasures sounds exactly what you'd want to hear on lazy summer day under a pōhutukawa by the beach.

Working Title won't be the best album this four-piece make and maybe much of that last half isn't made for venues larger than an intimate club. But it's one of those records which insinuates itself and by the beautifully thoughtful Day to Day at the end it's very easy to hit repeat (or flip it over, it comes as vinyl) and sink into it all over again.

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You can hear and buy this album (digital and vinyl) at bandcamp here



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