This is naive pop, par excellence. There's a real nobility behind the 13 solid-gone grooves here. On the epic 'Om Namah Shivaya', the Future Pilot himself, Sushil K, draws on the drone-based music of his Indian heritage and mixes it in with the sweet gentility of his fellow Glasgow souls to produce a song of mesmerising beauty.
On 'Ananda Is The Ocean', we find Katrina Mitchell (Pastels), Vinita Dade and Isobel Campbell (Belle & Sebastian) joining their ego-less voices in a soothing harmony that is vaguely reminiscent of all those bed-time stories of sailors and dockyards your mother used to sing to you, but nowhere near as cloying.
'Darshan' features more Indian voices, over echo-saturated guitars and a disquieting rhythm. 'Beautiful Dreamer' is like a child's musical box, distorted back through a 100 years of pain and disillusionment and, yes, somehow optimism despite all of that.
Let me explain naïpop. We're talking Pastels, Jad Fair, anyone who still retains a core innocence and distrust of the shackles of life. It doesn't necessarily imply cutie or amateur. Future Pilot AKA's fellow Geographic band Maher Shalal Hash Baz share a similar dreamy, warped pop sensibility, and they're an insurrectionist Japanese pop outfit!
You can equate naive pop with a yearning to return to the simpler times of childhood, but that's certainly not the end to it either. Is 'Brimful of Asha' (the original version) a simple wallow in nostalgia? Uh-huh.
This is a beautiful, satisfyingly complete album. Most of the time, you can't work out the vocals or the time signatures or quite why it should be so rewarding to listen to. Like the time tunnel ride on Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, only inverted and you're glad. This is magnificent.
by Graham Waveney