Simplicity

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Over the course of his career, Matt Berry has proven to be an impressive mimic of various styles on the vintage pop/rock color wheel. Whether he's romping through proggy folk-rock, digging deep into singer/songwriter tropes, exploring psychedelic pop, or conjuring up synth-heavy soundscapes, he's not only been able to re-create sounds, but has imbued them with enough of his own melodic sensibility to make his albums consistently feel relevant and alive, not fusty old museum pieces. That being said, it's absolutely no surprise that he's more than up to the challenge presented on his 2023 album Simplicity. One of the main labels involved with the British library music industry, KPM, offered Berry a chance to make a record in the vein of their late-'60s sounds, and he leapt at it. He came up with 11 instrumentals designed to be used as background ambiance for chase scenes and montages, themes for sporting contests, transitions between segments in documentary films, or any other place someone might need some groovy music. Working with ace drummer Craig Blundell as he has done a few times before, Berry is able to trot out items from his collection of gear, ranging from Mellotron and xylophone to 12-string guitar and electric piano, mixing and matching them like a painter with a gimlet eye for exactly the right shading. Not only does he do his usual whiz-bang job of whipping up retro delights, there's also a strut and snap to the tracks that lets the listener know that this is a labor of love, not music cranked out by people slogging, however delightfully, through their day jobs. There's a twinkling lightness to tracks like "Top Brass" and "Rising Bass" that wouldn't be there if Berry was just painting by numbers. The tracks with slightly more complicated arrangements, like the moodier "Get the Scene" or "Telescopic," show how much he has grown as a crafter of sound, and they have a richness not often associated with this style of music. The couple of more lightweight songs are just as much fun; one can picture Berry grinning as he cranks up the wah-wah pedal on "Too Many Hats" or settles into a phased sunshine soul groove on "Good Sport." He has obviously done his homework on library music and KPM, and it's equally clear that they did their homework on him as this is a perfect match of brand-new and retro. Simplicity would both fit in perfectly in the label's original run and stand as one of the best things they had to offer. It's yet another triumph for Berry as he continues to trip merrily through music history like a brilliant minstrel, spreading joy and sunshine in his wake at every step.

© Tim Sendra /TiVo