Tobruk – I’m In Love With You
Tobruk – Heart Of A Sound Spirit
Tobruk – Queens Are Made
Tobruk – Send It For Tomorrow
Seeing as how I’ve spent large swaths of the past couple of years not posting much, there are a whole lot of records that I’m realizing I still haven’t shared. This one came my way via Joel of Tropicalia In Furs, at one of his legendary Rappcats Pop-Ups. You can’t judge a record by its cover, but with a cover like this, I had to hear what the music sounded like. My memory now is a little iffy on all the particulars, but after either Joel dropped the needle on the first cut or I checked it out from youtube, I was sold.
I do remember asking Joel what the deal was with this band and record, and he said it was some American dudes that cut a record in Brasil. As all the songs were in English, and the band members had names like “Brian Anderson,” and “Billy Rogers,” that made good sense. Getting ready to post this thought, I discovered that apparently all the members of the band were actually from Brasil. The exact same dudes, with the exact same names, had perhaps a bit more local success a year later as Light Reflections. Perhaps they just adopted the Anglo-names to pass themselves off as being from “overseas?” I got no idea. The bigger mystery to me is what happened between the recording of this record and all the others, cause they barely sound like the same group from year to the next.
The sound of Tobruk on this first album is a bit wild and wooly, big fuzzy guitars, heavy drums, weird echo-ey sound effects, secondary vocals that sound like they’re recorded in the hallway. Tobruk doesn’t show a whole lot of range on this album, but they know how to rock a acid freak Hippie groove. The groove is so heavy that I couldn’t resist dropping “Heart Of A Sound Spirit” during a guest set at Funky Sole. I thought for sure it would clear the dancefloor, but coming in near the end of the set, at close to 2am, I was surprised at how packed the floor remained. Especially in the present moment, where going to a club or bar or dancing with folks seems like a distant dream, I’m thankful for that memory.
At a later pop-up, Joel had a second record from Tobruk, which sounded more like Light Reflections than this album, where all of the rough edges had been removed from the group. Such a shame. I really would have loved to have heard them produce another freak-out LP like this. But, that’s the way of world often…Let’s just be thankful for what we got.