Toby Tune’s tropically inspired twosome, The Client Brothers, returns with a nearly forgotten collection that may have been buried near a colorfully marked but eventually misplaced coconut tree. Recorded between 1985 and the early ‘90s, the album Tropical World is the result of over 26 years of Tuesday night recording sessions (in Minneapolis, before Toby’s permanent excursion to Costa Rica), an embracing of any and all genres, and a trip to Jamaica armed with cheap microphones and an urge to record weather, wildlife, and wildly clanged drinks. Ready for a musically shaped tropical escape? Let’s listen, sip a ginger beer, and hit the highlights before an inexcusable waning of this reviewer’s sobriety…
Tropical World begins with the 14-ish-minute, musical environment epic, the “CULA CULA SUITE.” Toby remembers the creation of it thusly:
“The boys flew down to Jamaica with the wives and rented the Villa Cula Cula. Armed, in those days, with a WalkMan cassette recorder and 2 cheezy $5 mics. Everyday they would try out the local product and sit around and record live (with the wives lurking about, cars honking, thunderstorm, etc.) and record over a 5 day period. We edited the results into a 15 minute suite. Big Fun. Dig it!”
And “dig it” we did. The “CULA CULA SUITE” starts with plant-pelting rains, the sounds of indigenous, hollow-tree percussion, and lightly pushed chimes. A break occurs as the duo comments and giggles between takes, and we’re launched back into their current locale with thunderstorms, the chirps of teeming, climbing, and peacefully perched creatures, more natural percussion, and smiling, puffing organ. To say it’s an immersive, happy affair is underselling it – the music, the place and that which lives within it, is sonically clear, easily imagined, and almost tactile in its submersible soundscaping.
“BOSSALUV” is a salsa; it’s wood block strikes and piping summer organ beams. It’s quick, excited, and happy to throw off its flower-festooned shirt and lie down somewhere green, baked, and softly soiled.
“CENTRAL ISLAND TME” is grand, light-flaring guitar chords over subtle, sizzling shakers. It is, without a doubt, the album’s biggest smile – it flies, clarifies, inspires, and does all this with a giant, wind-shielding grin.
“FOOL MOON” is fast, energetic; an immediate entreaty to dance and shake. It’s quick wooden drum strikes and accordion-esque calls. This is a trip down especially rough but ultimately safe, and unnaturally warm, waters. This is a moment where a precious beast is discovered, and perhaps hastily, comically, tip-toed away from.
“LAKE WALK” is big, ‘80s-warm synths before mellowing to electronic bubbles and fleeting, spiralling chirps. The percussion is natural, solid, and perhaps arched over a nighttime fire. And with unexpected brevity, this interesting collusion of sounds simply stops.
Album closer “REGGAE MON,” with its Reggae-inspired bounce, is reverb-dipped claps, a sandy snare, and striking horn synths supported by stalking synth bass. And before its sudden full stop, bamboo-ish pipes tout something playful before the song turns ominous – a promise of something threatening and famished lurking about the ancillary veldt.
But is it good?
It’s music as sonically crafted, instantaneous location submersion – you’re amongst tropical, hazy, heat-heavy environs, navigating through wind-bent trees and rain-pelleted leaves. You move to the sounds of the jungle, and to the music that cascades between every tree, every marbleized, mate-calling beak, and wind-beaten blade of grass. Sonically clean while positively packed with life, Tropical World by The Client Brothers is an aurally teeming treat for the ears. Recommended.
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