Grassy Spark has been on everyone’s lips since winning Vodacom in the City last year – which scored them the chance to open for their Australian counterparts The Cat Empire. The last twelve months has seen the seven-piece ska blend featured on almost every major line up around the country – from Splashy Fen to Oppikoppi, as well as their second-running main stage slot at Rocking the Daisies. This year-long journey has also followed the group hard at work recording their debut album “Portal”, a delightful 11-track project which dropped last week.
The album opens on ‘Here I Am’, the recently released single which sparked a nationwide initiative which saw members of the musical community – as well as the general public – voicing their dreams in a 30 second selfie video. The track itself is light and jangling, simply bred for radio play. Following closely in its wake comes ‘Living in a Paradise’, whose infectiously grooving melody should be familiar to anyone who has been following the band of late. Featuring Jeremy Loops on harmonica, the song also employs a number of starkly African inflections, deftly reminding one where the group proudly hail from.
Featuring Khaos Cotterell, ‘Feel It’ dives into a Jamaican deep-end with grooving reggae vocals off which Grassy’s crooning voices bounce. A warped, pitching psych-synth progression opens ‘If I Could I Would’ before their familiar ska-beat returns, while ‘Love to Share’ features Bonj Mpanza, whose silvery vocals contribute a refreshingly innovative dimension to the all-male band. ‘Sonic Boy’ speeds through its allotted three minutes at a breakneck pace, throwing psych distortions neatly into the mix as it goes and citing with a effortless vigour: “This is the generation that moving away.”
‘Dancing in the Dark’ is stitched together by a quietly grooving guitar riff, while ‘Mona Lisa’ (feat. Rudeboboboss) pairs spacey synths with calypso vocals, bringing the project to a fittingly strong close. A curious blend of electro and reggae-ska, the track meanders through alternating instrumental and electronic tendencies – neatly tying the knot on one of the more strapping offerings of 2016.
Follow Skye on Twitter.
Download “Portal” here.
