An entirely unseasonal record, this. Whilst it may be mildly mournful, it seems more the sort of thing to sung by some ragged-trousered troubadour on a beach somewhere. Ideally with a flickering flame and saucer-eyed fan girls and boys gazing on Piers Faccini adoringly. Happily, he’s quite a handsome fellow which would distract from the fact this is actually a remarkably mundane record.
I Dreamed An Island doesn’t suffer from being rubbish, it just drifts along on a soporific sea of fair enough. Piers, himself, may view it as, “An ode to troubles around the world“, and, “an impassioned celebration of cultural diversity and pluralism”, but lord, does it struggle under the weight of its own worthiness. Fine, if you’re after that kind of thing and consider weaving your own muesli and boycotting Starbucks as a genuine rail against humanity’s misdeeds, but, it’s hard to really pull out any great artistic merit here. Flipping about in a multilingual fashion and politely abusing the acoustic guitar is not enough in itself. Addressing the state of the planet in these tumultuous times turns out to be really quite gentle. Perhaps even a little vacuous.
All that said, if you like pseudo-meaningful stuff with song titles like ‘Drone‘, ‘Bring Down The Wall‘ and ‘Oiseau‘, with nods to coffee-table world music, you’ll love this. He has a nice enough, at times quite delicate, voice. The reverb is turned up for added mystic-type vibes and the odd, authentically global-sounding, backing vocal lurks in the shadows around the notional campfire. In fact, there’s nothing actually really terrible about all of this. It’s just not any good, either. With all the exciting genres and sub-genres from around the world available at one’s fingertips, it seems somewhat remiss to filter such jagged thrills out to create a record seemingly destined not to offend anyone. Apart from me.
Maybe a spell with Ben Harper (a previous collaborator) is required. Inject a bit more chutzpah and gusto. Perhaps that best illustrates the mundanity of this album. If Ben Harper is someone who could liven proceedings up, you’re in trouble.
