I was pretty excited to hear that Portland, Oregon’s Dolorean would be playing Salt Lake City’s Urban Lounge April 10. My friend Rachel turned me on to 2003’s Not Exotic several years ago and I was hooked. It is maudlin, elegiac, and beautiful. Singer Al James opens Not Exotic with a trio of excruciating, mournful ballads and concludes with the macabre love tale “Hannibal, MO” near the album’s end.
James is why
God invented
lonely white guys.
Still, I was a bit skeptical. I found 2007’s You Can’t Win a bit unremarkable and their 2010 effort Unfazed was promoted as a Dolorean collaborative as recently as this fall but is now being marketed as an Al James solo work. Money woes might be splintering Dolorean, if amicably.
I was not surprised, then, after a little sleuthing to learn that the Urban Lounge show would not star Dolorean but instead Dolorean’s antithesis, Delorean. That’s Delorean with an “e” and from nowhere near Portland. Specifically from Barcelona, Spain. The eternally winsome and infectious Delorean with an “e” released last year’s spry Aryton Senna EP.
Delorean performs the EP’s flanged “Seasun” here in 2009.
Falling somewhere between the dreamy pop of Air France and Primal Scream’s 90’s dub, I have a hard time classifying Delorean with an “e” as dance or even dance-pop. They build the house keyboards with restraint and layer the climactic vocals with great effect. But look, they rock. It just so happens you can dance to it.
I’m downloading the summer release Subiza from Delorean with an “e” as I write this. That may be the subject of another post. But anyone planning to to sip red wine and mope about lost love with Dolorean with an “o” will quickly find themselves celebrating the onset of spring and maybe, just maybe, wandering onto the dance floor to celebrate.