Mystery duet Guess What always seem to resurrect from the depths of the Outernational underground : after nearly twenty years of activity, “Solar Boats” is their 6th album, and their (mostly) instrumental tunes still pop and wizz through the air like groovy flying objects, while taking sonic exploration and fun space-related concepts ever further.
Despite their obsession of appearing on stage in astronaut onesies and mystical masks, we do know who is responsible for this cosmic saga : drummer and beatmaker Luke Warmcop (Phat Dat, Orchestre du Montplaisant) and keyboardist Graham Mushnik (Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek). These two share a common love for specific styles of music such as Italian library, Afro-Caribbean grooves, Arabic pop, space-jazz – the list is long but this already says a lot about Guess What‘s identity.
Then comes the conceptual aspect of their albums, which the duet take as a fun starting point rather than a poncy intellectual statement (even if they like to pretend it’s the latter !). Many will remember their first opus “Yuri Gagarin“, or the now collectable “Al-Khawarizmi“, both of which focused on historic figures of astronomy and space exploration.“Solar Boats“ can be seen in Ancient Egypt’s iconography, transporting the Pharaohs’ souls to the Otherworld, but here Guess What imagine they are able to use such embarcations to travel through galaxies and nebulae alongside children (a reference to their previous album “Children In Space“), in order to musically depict landscapes of the Cosmos from a playful and poetic point of view.
“Combustible Candy”, “Glider Kites”, “Stickle Bricks”… Such track titles illustrate the light and quirky spirit of the record, and it wouldn’t be totally off-grid to describe its atmosphere as a crossover between a late 60’s Moog album and a spiritual jazz session, with hints of dub on tracks like “Multiversal Encounters” or of cinematic funk on “Homeward Bound”. The addition of choir, trumpet (played by Warmcop) and flute (Antonin Voyant) on a handful of tunes broaden the sonic spectrum.
Guess What have coupled this album production with the making of a fabulous short film containing 3 tracks from “Solar Boats“, “Guess What – Sound In Space“, directed by Mat Santa Cruz & Sylvain Raby,which will be released a few weeks ahead of the record’s street date – and of course, watch out for their live shows !
