Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
For some the idea of a large built-up city is one caught up in a nightmare of conformity and tight-fitting constriction, claustrophobic and oppressive suffocation. They see the lights of Living Rooms that hang implausibly in the sky, and they feel trapped by the knowledge that the metropolitan urban landscape does not offer the wide spaces of imagination that the forests and the fields outside their doors in which they need to feel secure, in which their stories can roam free.
What they forget is that the shell of the city may seem impenetrable, uninviting, a glow of neon that is eerie and dangerous in its appearance, but inside those living rooms there is a life willing to dream of changing the world one step and song at a time, and for them there is an absolute freedom that cannot be compared to the open spaces beyond the city, for they have the freedom to fail, learn, improve and conquer, to use the neon as a spotlight, the terraces of their homes as a stage, and the audience already made, for they have the same dilemmas, passions, experiences, and emotions as those they share their high rise flats, their town houses, the pavements, the parks and shops with.
The stage is set for the debut album by Fe Salomon, the neon lights, the audience, all is there for Living Rooms to be entered, and in a series of moments that unleashes heaven from above, and the wily nature of those who take mental notes from the side-lines, what comes from out of the wings is magical, demonstrative, fearless…
The big pop song that quenches the thirst of the faithful, but entwinned with the big sound of brass and rhythmic synth expressions, this is the full glare of the living room in every home that the big city can supply, the gaze coming from every wall, the shadows exposed in the absolute gaze, and the windows, those soulful eyes to the inner workings of the mind, they allow others to see in past the bricks and mortar and take advantage of the display of endeavour being created by Fe Salomon.
Across tracks such as Colours Sounds, Wired On Caffeine, Creatures Of Habit, Interstate 10, Due Respect, and the class opener of Polka Dot, the Northampton born songwriter flings open the doors and insists that the party is ready to start, invites to those in kitchens, to the dreamers in their beds, the counters in the pantry, and ones to whom the world is their oyster; for there is a new queen in town, and her Living Room is open to all to dance and swing to.
Fe Salomon releases Living Rooms on January 27th via Drink Me Recordings.
Ian D. Hall