The Sonnets Western Harbour Blue. I live in Westminster, Colorado. Come visit, there's nothing to see! It isn't rife with indiepop sorts. My neighbour's listen to hip hop mainly. I can hear it on Saturday mornings. So, talk of the Sonnets has been thin on the ground. I'd love to discuss them with someone. Come visit, I'll make egg scrambles! I am lonely, yes, but that is always. The Sonnets would likely polarise even those people with their fingers on the underground, their hair intertwined with Help Stamp Out Loneliness fans, their noses filled with the whiff of pretension. The Sonnets are dreadfully unoriginally. This is not great crime in Westminster. We are an accepting lot. They sound a lot like another very unoriginal band from Sweden, they sound a lot like Napoleon. They dress very nice. They have style. It doesn't belong to them, their style, but they take time to have a decent haircut, a nice seam, a baby blue turtleneck. These are things that enhance their Swedish wanna be northern soul-ness. Second track, Sebastian Said. Are they derided as a second rate Napoleon in their homeland? In the video for this song they are found on a sailing yacht, cutting wave tops, sea spray in their youthful visages. What is the great crime of singing about finding that perfectly fitted blue blazer and a comfortable pair of dock siders instead of the usual bits about the maladies of the mind? It is summer time. It was meant to be 90 degrees here today. It was not. But I am listening to the Sonnets anyhow. Third track, a bit Modesty Blaise this. Again, no points detracted for unoriginality, it is performance that matters. There is care taken in the arrangements, the playing, the singing, the style. We must applaud these things, to do otherwise is racist. You are probably enjoying a Cadbury product as I type, so you know a racist when you see one in the mirror. But racism is silly. We love everyone. They are Swedish. Is this important? No. I really enjoy this and I wouldn't mind if they were from Arvada. Or Madagascar. A horn, somber, elegant, the arrangements are pristine. I've already mentioned the arrangements. I don't know anything about music at all so when I mention the arrangements it doesn't mean anything at all actually. I could discuss the pattern they employ when they shave their cheek. I could mention the angle of their shoe horn. I could mention the temperature of the sun's core. It would all be the same. Fourth track, smokier, deeper, this is the romantic ballad, I get the feeling that it will encompass a falsetto? Does he possess a falsetto? It hasn't arrived. Would I be surprised if it does? Possibly. I've not listened to this for a while. I've been trying out the new Bachelorette record and it's lovely. Binary opposition these, Sonnets, human, warmth, delicate, Bachelorette, alien, chill, intricate. What would be their maladies of the mind should they feel the need to discuss them on the next record? A discontentment with Fredrik Reinfeldt? A discontentment with the last Radio Dept record? My own malady is the excessive praise that that record has received. I have not made official comment on it, but it is dour dreariness, truly. But maybe the Sonnets are concerned with living the lifestyle of a pop star. He's loving a life in the spotlight, in Malmo when they walk down the streets there must be 3 or 4 people who recognize them each and every week. They give them a hopeful look of appreciation, "keep it up man because I can't get through Wednesday morning without Lost Without You Ever Since. Next track, number 6, more brilliantly crafted pop. I am painting a picture in my mind of the creative process, the singer arrives, the rest of the group are already seated, turtlenecked, singer scarfed, he's snapping his fingers, he steps to the microphone and the words just pour forth. it is emptiness, it is cliche, it is hollow bodied soul, but it's perfectly measured, the guitarist with his guitar on one knee plays a sharp spiky riff, the drummer is clapping his hands, the keyboard player with square tipped shoes is playing a variation of something Irving Berlin played 1000 times more competently. A dream. This song is terrific! It is called The Blues and the Vows, it isn't devotional or bluesy, it's just a lovely mid-tempo ballad. Next track, Everybody's On A High. It doesn't appear that he owns a falsetto. Sad. Perhaps when they break out of the Malmo ghetto they will be able to afford one on credit. Whispered middle 8, I love the confidence to be so daft, to be so open to derision. Marvelous. Did this make anyone's best of the 2010 list? You all blew it then! While you were listening to your Shit Robot and Janelle Monae you had this emptiness creep all over your tendons and ligaments and it was the vague uneasy recognition that you could have been listening to the Sonnets. If Siesta were still releasing records, does Siesta still release records, they would be unhappy that they didn't release this record. Have you noticed that ever since Ramon Leal left Siesta it has been mainly downhill from there. Forget Hamas and Abbas, Gillard and Abbott, Jeter and Rodriguez, let's get Ramon and Siesta back on good speaking terms and bring back the beautiful life of a Siesta pop record. It exists in spades on this album, take it, grind it up and sprinkle the dust underneath your super fantastic beefsteaks and make a cobb salad and have a revelation of greatness. last track, starts off cooly with just the organ and his voice, gorgeous, now the guitar and a higher pitched organ, more gorgeous. Fancy people will deride this, probably as heartily as they will deride Frankie and the Hearstrings but Louis Phillippe rips off Jacques Brel and Jacques Brel rips off someone, possible George Auric? I rip off many people. My heart comes from La Passionara, my wit from the depths, my hair from Sonic Boom. We are all unoriginal, some just have more flair of existence in their tributary manners.

Update: Louis Phillippe has written on his website recently with great effusive praise for Flann O'Brien. He must read the Dalkey Archive and The Poor Mouth.

Update: the Bachelorette record is really really terrific!

Update: Whoops recently in Louis Phillippe time means 2006. He's probably read The Poor Mouth by now and possibly Byrne by Anthony Burgess as well.