Next week, Ian Ball of Grey’s Anatomy grads Gomez is releasing a solo record, Who Goes There. A lovely tune from the collection, the ebullient “I Knew You Were Trouble,” namechecks Barry White, Marvin Gaye, and Prince, but the smartly wordy song swings with an acoustic and piano-tinged upbeat jangle and airy harmonies, not any late-night funk or soul (despite the album’s shadowy promo pic).
Love the sighing, cascading voices (put on your headphones, please). Another album track, “Failure,” actually does make it sorta funky (and Genesis gets a mention). Like “Trouble,” the story involves girl trouble, but the other ingredients — synth squiggle, female backups — are different.
Can’t stop singing that main hook: “She said, ‘hey, don’t let a little failure get you down / ‘Cause it happens to the best of us.’” You can hear another winner, a deeply bass-y and spacious (no Ian vocals) version of “Failure” at Ball’s Space. All of this has us really looking forward to Mr. B’s record.
Who Goes There is out 10/30 on IB’s own Dispensary label.
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like em, but why do they cut off…
i hv been on the gomez wagon for some time now i think they could all manage interesting solo albums… this one is off to agood stert.
hey hey yah — both play fine for me. maybe give ‘em another listen.
Anyone else think Gomez were more interesting back before they stopped taking all of the electronic influences out of their sound? I saw their first tour and have been following them ever since, but their last couple albums have been getting steadily more MOR. Still, I’ll be checking this out when it drops since Ian is my favorite member.
There are some free live MP3′s from Ian’s performance at the Monolith Festival (including “Failure”) available here:
http://woxy.lala.com/blog/2007/10/02/monolith-2007-recap-ian-ball/
I picked up Ian’s album from the John Butler Trio show at Terminal 5 in NYC I am new to his music but now I am hooked