How It’s Done In Italy – My Bubba & Mi
I got turned on to the label Beep Beep Back Up the Truck back when they released “Reverence for Fallen Trees,” by The Black Atlantic. Having not browsed their collection for some time, I checked them out again last week and was very pleased to discover the release, “How It’s Done In Italy,” by Danish trio My Bubba & Mi. This is not ambient music, and doesn’t fit with the other releases reviewed here any better than Juanitos do. Similar to Juanitos, however, My Bubba & Mi do what they do with such verve and feeling that anyone who appreciates soul in music will have to check them out.
It’s tempting to call this old time music, and indeed the songs contain all the qualities that people love about old time; lyrics and melodies that evoke nostalgia and lost romance, acoustic instrumentation, two and maybe three part harmonies. The band know this well and capitalize on it – the hard copy design and image files are all candy-stripes and brown paper wrapping, along with grainy photos of the group that recall summers between the wars. But at heart this is contemporary pop music, and I mean that in the best sense. The opening track, “Gone,” is really a blues rocker that hits as hard as it does because the band aren’t afraid to slow down and put the power in the vocals. “After You” swaggers and “I Will Never Love a Young Boy Again” lilts and you could call either of them folk music, but there’s an alt-country and cabaret edge here that even the best of today’s string bands wouldn’t touch. This is neither a criticism of string bands nor My Bubba & Mi – it’s simply an observation that making music with heart is about doing what you do well and not getting hung up on what might pass for “authentic.” And these ladies have heart. It’s all over every track on this highly recommended release.
The band has a website at http://mybubbaandmi.com/ but I have linked the cover photo to their release site on Bandcamp. This is because Bandcamp allows users to download music in a variety of lossless formats, and may really be the best starting point for getting to know new bands and labels.