So What, What? is the latest album by Toronto based duo Lammping who are multi-disciplinary musical magpies Mikhail Galkin and Jay Anderson, who are joined on the album by Marker Starling and Dorothea Pass.
The album opens with The Set that is sort of a soundcheck and sound explainer setting us up for what's to follow. Criminal Against Nature has a greasy loose bass riff and Neo Bolan boogie feel for those sweet voices that are always behaving like they are Criminal Against Nature.
Green After Green works around a shuffling neo-militaristic beat and supple soulful guitar, while the vocals make clear how lucky they feel to be Green After Green, before the middle eight breakdown into a soul stirring snapshot, that returns to the main beat asking where he's going.
Those Silver Skies feat Marker Starling has a speaker rattling bass and super sweet vocals and guitar for this rather introspective song of reflection and hope to see Those Silver Skies once more.
Luxury Prayer features a jazzy brass section and a drum and bass backbeat for a short interlude into Dancers At Noon who need that muted trumpet sound to bring out there inner A Tribe Called Quest feelings of how centred they feel.
I Certify that this has an annoyingly simple percussive figure, that soul guitar strums over hazy vocals emerging from within, letting us know exactly how they feel. Feeling Mean is laid back and far too nice to actually be mean in any conceivable way, while they look at the black birds flying south, while they hope to get a Donald Byrd or Black Byrds comparison, as if they are that funky.
Feeling Mean opens with some beige funk, before closing with a sample of a very English voice talking I believe about how much Carnaby Street has changed. Blushing In Your Sleep feat Dorothea Pass has a very late 60's new age soul feel to Dorothea's vocals, laying out all the reasons you might be Blushing In Your Sleep to that magical Rhodes keyboard style part.
Turn Around Boat if you can before its too late and you hit the rocks, or in this case that almost whispered vocals leave shadows on the walls and the bass and guitars sound almost improvised, before the outro features an old soul record being sampled and pitch shifted.
Ex-Harmony takes a classic hip-hop beat and adds phaser gun sounds, chiming Christmas bells, bass booms and weird treated backing vocals to be rather odd. Listen To The Water as every word is your daughter apparently, this has the return of the Bolan boogie beat, some nifty sax and a slight narcoleptic feel.
Wasted Nights sitting in a too cool for school wine bar trying to figure out just what Lionel Hampton classic they are ripping off. Of My Head they have no idea how to answer their own questions, no matter how much you bribe them and the slow strummed and picked guitars, eventually they hit the effects pedals like they are having a revelation.
The album closes with What Time Is It, Again needing to be said repeatedly, like it's about three in the morning, you've been drinking for hours and repeating everything you say over and over, while begging that girl to be yours, while she is just trying to push you away and stagger off home, while they claim they wish they were thrown in jail with their guitar, that heralds a classic Philly soul flute break, that just leaves us asking again What Time Is It, Again obviously not Yonki Time that's for certain.
Find out more at https://lammping.bandcamp.com/album/so-what-what https://store.wearebusybodies.com/products/lammping-so-what-what-pre-order https://linktr.ee/lammping https://www.instagram.com/lammping/
