Boho Dancer
Album: Gemini (Deluxe)
Label: Slow Shark
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.bohodancer.com

The Danish trio appear with their debut album in an extended format with three additional brand new bonus tracks for the UK market - 'Me & Your God', 'Pistols' and 'Good Vibrations' are all added to the set of songs which have what singer and lyricist Ida Wenoe calls "a melancholic Nordic vibe."

Revealing their influences to include Neil Young, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen gives a pretty good flavour of what to expect - the chilled out and quite languid atmosphere of the album is accompanied by some songs with more accessible and poppy overtones - what boils down to some eminently catchy songs based round Ida's naturally dreamy vocals.

Lyrically, it's been described as being "like fairytales for adults" - opening song 'Bohemian Child' bubbles along before the infectious feelgood sense of the appealing pop charm of 'Fictional Reasons'. There's an opportunity to sample the harmonies on 'Like Rain' where the soundtrack of an insistent rhythm is accompanied by a gentle bass throb before an calm string interlude gives an impression of grey sadness. 'Slept On A Silver Platter' is a minimal and abstract piece of work verging on a bluesy effect on the vocal delivery with interjecting stark guitar chords before it again shifts pace into a fuller realisation of what it promises in its opening. 'Loving Creatures' is perhaps where the more archetypal songwriting collides with their inventive and instrumentally ambitious outlook, continuing into the title track and 'The Clock' - all sparse guitar and fragile voice.

Of the bonus songs, Boho Dancer give themselves a chance to develop some of their ideas and the themes from the album, coming across a little more experimental and abstract with the soundscapes they create - certainly a bit different and more typical of the more moody and organic nature of what they do. It rounds off a finely crafted album which bridges the gap between songwriting and evocative atmospherics.

Mike Ainscoe