Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina – ‘Stereo Love’
When it comes to instruments which polarize listeners, the accordion must rank just behind the didgeridoo and just ahead of the human voice (all down to personal taste, y’see) as one of the single most divisive noises of all time. If not quite the full Marmite*, it is certainly a roll-mop herring, dipped in semolina, and sprinkled with sprouts.
Some people love them, and will claim that it is possible to create a whole one-man orchestra of tones and melody from the wheezing beasts. Others simply hear the sound of dying sheep, doing a polka, in hell. And there is no convincing either side that they’ve got the wrong end of the stick.
This is going to do nothing to change matters.
(Here’s the video. Skegness has never looked so colourful.)
Now, it’s important for impartiality that I explain that I quite like accordions. I don’t LOVE them, even though I once got sent a free one as part of the publicity for Samim’s similarly bellows-heavy ‘Heater’, but I quite like them. My friend’s dad used to play one, and he even rigged it up so you could put it through an amp. This made him officially the Matt Bellamy of the squeezebox and therefore automatically cool…or cooler than other accordianists…which isn’t saying a lot…but STILL.
This, on the whole, is not as chirpy a tune as Samim’s. It’s mournful, carrying a boomy, cavernous sense of weight around the heartal area, pierced through by Vika’s icy sobs. She’s sad and wants her loved one to know about it, by sighing pointedly and pointing at her own tears. TEARS OF SADNESS, YOU UNCARING DOLT!
But that frosty cool can’t stand up to a thawing blast of the dreaded squeezebox. No sooner has she struck the perfect anguished pose, but some busker chips in with a jaunty air, smashing the cymbals on his knees together and nodding eagerly towards the upturned hat full of coins on the pavement.
As mixed messages go, it’s like finding morris dancers in full regalia, jigging around the South Pole, next to an empty tent, surrounded by polar bear footprints, and signs of a struggle.
Still could be worse. It could’ve been played on bagpipes.
Download: Out now
CD Released: May 24th
edwardmaya.com
BBC Music page
(Fraser McAlpine)
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