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February 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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Mellow release debut album for North America
13 February 2001

Parisian trio Mellow formed three and a half years ago when Patrick Woodcock hooked up rather serendipitously with a couple of studio engineers: Pierre Begon-Lours and Stephane Luginbuhl. Woodcock had previously co-written Ce Matin La with Air’s Nicolas Godin (an old pal from architecture school) as well as played tuba and guitar on Air’s Moon Safari LP. Begon-Lours and Luginbuhl had worked with, among others, dub/dance outfit Ollano.
    The three quickly discovered a mutual fascination with neo-psychedicism and put together an album’s worth of tracks. They christened themselves Mellow, called the set Another Mellow Winter, and released it in early 1999 only for France.
    With a bit a bit of track shuffling, the album came out for the UK last August as Another Mellow Summer and led to a tour supporting The Teardrop Explodes founder and all-around arch-druid Julian Cope. (Yes, happily, Mellow are a performing band as well.) Now it’s North America’s turn and this time ’round we have Another Mellow Spring, with another shuffling and featuring a previously unreleased remix by Fila Brazilia along with a surprise bonus track.
    For the US/Canada release, the band chose to lead off with Shinda Shima, a devastatingly pretty and highly dynamic composition that sounds like it belongs on King Crimson’s In The Court Of The Crimson King. But as soon as you hear the very danceable Paris Sous La Neige (English: Paris under snow), up next, with its ingenuous, unadorned lyrics and vocals, you know you’re in for an even more interesting ride.
    Through the eight tracks and four remixes, Another Mellow Spring spins through references to Sgt. Pepper’s era Beatles, early Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett, lots more King Crimson, Kevin Ayers/ Soft Machine, and so on. But Mellow are always looking forward, using those ’60s and ’70s textures as colors, along with other very sparkly ones of their own invention, for some strikingly original art.
    You can catch Mellow at this year’s SXSW festival in Austin on 14 March and at the Los Angeles Knitting Factory on 20 March. Another Mellow Spring is out today in North America on CyberOctave/Atmosphériques. Four bites out of five.

Rockbites ratings  5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying.

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