𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 - this week: WORK - Todd & Karen

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly - an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆 - 𝙏𝙤𝙙𝙙 & 𝙆𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣

Charles toils…

I’ve been listening to quite a lot of Motown records lately. That is, in between yet more plays of Amaury Laurent Bernier’s masterpiece (I hope you have all been enjoying it too - air-guitaring to ‘Innit ?’). All this Motown, though, and it always brings me back to the same song. ‘Work’. “What is it good for? Absolutely NOTHING!!”… Ah sorry, my mistake. That song’s called ‘War’, not ‘Work’. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of getting the words wrong, that fabulous early Motown record, ‘My Girl’ (you all know it); my girlfriend always sang that chorus as ‘Maggots’. “Talkin’ ‘bout maah-ggots. MAGGOTS! Ooh-ew-ew-ew!”… It’s enough to bring more than a smile to my face. But back to ‘Work’. Sorry: ‘War’. The thing is, having been involved in few wars in my time, the switcheroo of war into work makes it more potent in a way. Because we all work. We all slave away at whatever it is that we do. And there’s that feeling of “What are we DOING??” - thank you, Lois from Malcolm in the Middle. What IS it good for? Absolutely nothing? Well, I believe it is good for two things (mainly). One (you guessed it): money. Two: a sense of purpose. It keeps us busy and gives us something to do. But more importantly it makes us feel like we’ve earnt the good times. And I like that. There is however one vital flaw in this system… In doing all this work all the time, we barely have any time for those “good times”. It is indeed the law of the sod. But at least all that spondulicks is piling up in the account, right? Nah; the taxman will see to that. And so we go back to that sense of purpose. And that roof over our head. It pays the bills, and is therefore necessary.

The thing is, I’m flat-out with work right now. And I am OH-SO grateful for such a sudden queue of mixing and production work (keep it coming, people)! The only problem is, it leaves little time for anything else. And I’m not talking about frolicking in the fields like the lightest of daisies. No-no! I’m talking about things like frantically sewing up the year in a neat red ribbon, buying a tree, making things festive, and getting the NAS Christmas playlist together. I have yet to manage any of this because of work. But the other thing that has to be done, is THIS. This article. I will not pause for a week just because I’m busy. “I haven’t got the time” is possibly the most overused phrase (if it is a phrase) in modern times. We all have the time, we just have to shift things around and make compromises. This week’s compromise being brevity. This week’s article will be the polar opposite of last week’s behemoth novella (longest ever, I believe). I say “novella”, but there was nothing fictional ABOUT it. Aside from Motown, I have also been listening to other genres entirely. Yes, I really do listen to a LOT of music. I need it. I breathe it like oxygen (actually, it’s more like nicotine - without the stiffening of the arteries). So, despite all the work, I do make time for listening to music. There is always time. Back to those other genres… I’ve been in a flow-y mood. There’s been quite a bit of jazz; some classical too. But interestingly, a psychedelic gene has entered the building, and it’s just lush. I don’t mean the crazy “my walls are morphing into trees and little rhinos with sharp teeth are after me” kind of psychedelic, but more the “lie on the ground, stare at the ceiling and let peace wash over my soul” kind of psychedelic. Think ‘Breathe’ by Pink Floyd. Music to get stoned to, basically. But the happier side of this vibe. Not Massive Attack kind of chill, but an anti-depressant kind of chill. I don’t get stoned (anymore) and I have never taken anti-depressants - just to get that out of the way.

And already we are pretty much at that point when I reveal my pick of week. Told you I had little time to spare, but I had to spare SOME time for you avid readers. Couldn’t have you sobbing into your cornflakes for a week, now, could we. Although I’ve been swimming in work these past few days (and hopefully will be for the rest of the year), I’ve been very happy in (and grateful for) my work. However, I’ve been swimming in something else this morning. HAL (A.I.) songs on the New Artist Spotlight playlists. And it feels as though they are stealing my ability to swim. HAL-generated music is making me drown. How can I possibly review a piece of music that was written, sung, performed, produced, mixed and mastered by a robot? I said this just a couple of weeks ago, but it is getting out of hand now, the sheer amount of these pretend songs. It’s making my job here VERY difficult. I don’t mean my ACTUAL job, but my job as a reviewer. The unpaid job. And why should I NOT review someone’s work just because some other "artist" has typed a few words into a box and pressed ‘generate’? So I now have to not only ignore the songs that I KNOW are HAL, but also the ones that I THINK are HAL. I’m simply not going to take that risk. But I’m pretty sure that one day I will be duped. I will write about a song that was not made by any humen (humans). So who did I opt for this week? Well, I very nearly went with Frank Joshua’s reimagined version of his earlier song, Turn To Your Soul. I know this new version intimately, you see. The reason being that the whole production was mine. Unfortunately meaning that I feel a tad uncomfortable reviewing it. The mix is not mine, however, because it needed to exactly fit the sound aesthetic of the forthcoming album. Understandable. Anyway, so if not Frank, then who…?

This week I am doing what I don’t usually like doing. I am reviewing a song that has already been in the NAS charts for a few weeks. I usually like to spring a brand new song on people as if I’m cracking an egg on your head. You didn’t see THAT one coming. But sometimes, I miss out a great song because another great song took its place at the time of release. Usually when this happens, the song passes me by, or I just feel like the song is too known and loved for a review to be of any interest. I feel like ‘WORK’, by Todd & Karen is an exception. I think I know how much was put into this song, and they went out of their way to publicise it to the masses before its release. The cover’s artwork is eye-catching and intriguing enough to stir people’s curiosity. And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like “Nah, I’ll pass”. HUH!! Some friend. While I have reviewed Todd & Karen once before, I feel it’s about time they got another Cornering. So, since release day I have been mulling over this new song. And in recent days I feel like it has been mulling ME over. Cup mulleth over! It is time for ‘WORK’!! No-no - this time, that’s a GOOD thing.

I said this is a song by Todd & Karen, but it’s not really JUST them. It features 3 other artists. Trick Knobs, William Lovitt, and Albert Nesbø Baker. Yes, I know. I too am taking a while to get over the name Trick Knobs, but there you go. ‘WORK’ is a thoroughly Norwegian endeavour, with the exception of a Chicagoan. Let me take you through who does what. I’ll start with Todd, because why nod. Todd’s name is not Todd, but in fact Øyvind. Øyvind Berge, to be precise. No wonder he opted for Todd. Anyway, he plays piano and guitar, as well as singing. Karen’s name is (you guessed it), not Karen, but actually Ina Verdi-Ruckstuhl. I personally prefer the name Ina to Karen, but then again, the name Karen has other connotations these days. I really do pity women called Karen, now. Not as much as I pity men called Karen. I digress. She is vocal on this record. Trick Knobs (stop it) is (STOP it) surprisingly not the name with which this chap was born. Instead, it is the thoroughly Irish name of Connor Cathey. He plays bass, keyboards and guitar. William Lovitt is a rarity in deciding to stick with his original name. So of course, I call him Billiam. Or often, young Billiam. You’ll all know him, I’m sure, for he has been a staple of the New Artist Spotlight for years. He’s our resident funkmeister general. The synth wizard himself! Surprisingly, he plays bongos and trombone. lowers glasses and checks notes - nope! My mistake. He plays synthesiser and OW-gan. The final member of this enjoyable collaboration is Albert Nesbø Baker. A stupendous drummer. All the music is written by all 5 members, and the lyrics were written by the singing duo: “Todd and “Karen”. I shall assume that the whole shebang was mixed by the twosome too, but I can’t be sure. Finally, it was mastered by Magnus Gulbrandsen for that finishing shine.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river. Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream… ‘WORK’ starts here. “WORK’ starts now. At just over 5 minutes, these artists take you on a journey. We start with some (I assume) Norwegian speech from “Karen”. Those words are NOT in the official lyrics. I tried (for far too long) to use Google Translate with the microphone. The setup was hilariously laborious (the things I do for you lot), and was utterly fruitless. My first attempt said something about a weatherman. My second attempt said something about a boy. My third, fourth and fifth attempt said something about a romantic foundation. So, putting this all together, I can only assume that this song is about a weatherman who had a romantic foundation with a boy. Either that, or despite this song’s title, my magic tech didn’t ‘WORK’. Directly after this Scandinavian jargon, our song begins to fill the room. A delightfully clanky upright piano (thick with pedal) paves the way as a double-tracked “Todd” sounds so absurdly English, it’s absurd. It’s not just the accent, but the honesty. The youthful (perhaps naïve) innocence. This doesn’t sound like a singer, but a lad who is speaking with notes. The kind of voice you hear in a local choir at Christmas (you see, I’m already getting into the festive spirit - CC downs another whisky and it burns). There’s even a light organ there in the background. This is a voice I would trust. This is a voice I DO trust. And believe me, I am not the type to automatically trust - HAL saw to that. But then drums. A drum fill that warms my heart - not a common thing for drums to do. And the whole song’s sound is instantly with us. Soft synths (the kind that Mike Oldfield might have used), bass, guitar slides (Gilmour style) - actually, it might not even be guitar. I also hear harpsichord plucking lightly somewhere in the back. Or perhaps an acoustic picking to make sure you don’t happily drift off to sleep…? With this song, the important thing is not instrument separation, but the sound as a whole. Like early Beatles records. There is plenty of Beatles in this song, but more so Wings, and of course Pink Floyd. I can also hear a bit of early Blur, and quite a chunk of Super Furry Animals. Strangely, despite this song having been released around a month ago, there is a festive sound to it. Part Christian, part Christmas. It’s just LOVEly.

At around 1:30, young Billiam takes to the stage after a brief interlude of back-taped synth. Billiam does what he does best. After a couple more verses and alternate melodies, things very gradually start to take a turn at around 2:48. The drummer stops pretending to be more peppy version of Nick Mason, and remembers that he is in fact Keith Moon (AKA Animal). But he’s gradual in his morphing. Just as you had assumed this was going to be a nice little hippy song to relax to, the room gets a little more interesting. Those rhinos are opening their eyes, but their teeth are nicely rounded - blunt to the touch. 3:08 finally releases the tension previously held for quite a while, only to go Eastern. Looks like that weatherman was wrong after all… It’s spooky, it’s exciting, and it’s exactly what I love about this kind of music. You are placed in THEIR world. Safety in a dangerous place. But that final minute rescues us from certain unknown. “Todd” holds our hand. “Karen” is somewhere around - can’t quite place where, but I’m sure she’s holding the fort for someone, somewhere. We end with a note that takes from ‘A Day in the Life’ - that piano. You know it. Whether you know the song well, or this is your first encounter, do it the honour of immersion. It’s worth giving yourself to the song. Don’t hold back.

Ah JEEZus. That was supposed to be a short article.

It just goes to show, I really do love ‘WORK’.

Listen to 𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆 on the 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 Spotify playlist HERE!

Listen to 𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆 on the 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 Apple Music playlist HERE!

Listen to 𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆 on YouTube HERE!

Follow 𝙏𝙤𝙙𝙙 & 𝙆𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣 on Instagram HERE!

Follow 𝙏𝙤𝙙𝙙 & 𝙆𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣 on TwiX HERE!

Please share this post and let me know your thoughts in the comments below

#review #song #songreview #ToddandKaren #WORK #Norway #pop #psychedelic #alternative #happy #sunshine #PinkFloyd #TheBeatles #Wings #Blur #SuperFurryAnimals #collab #ConnollysCorner #CharlesConnolly #CC #NAS #NewArtistSpotlight #IWantMyNAS #StopPayola