Everybody Loves

Bobby & Blumm: Ellinor Blixt, F.S. Blumm.
The debut album from this duo is not their own debut work in general, with both Bobby & Blumm (real names Ellinor Blixt and Frank Schülgte Blumm) having performed and released separately over the years. As a collaboration, it's a nice effort; if it's not a suddenly remarkable release, it's an amiable and attractive enough contribution to whatever genre can be described as mood music via rock and jazz instrumentation. Bobby's soft, gentle singing with a slight keening edge and Blumm's understated electric guitar playing suit the Morr label aesthetic in the broad sense, while the sense of understated scrabbling fracture around the edges of some of the arrangements, as on "Leave a Taste" and "Distance Disappears," creates a bubbling, lurking sense of frenetic glitch being held off but not completely hidden. But for the most part Everybody Loves is the kind of sweetly winsome affair both the album art and the title practically shout (quietly). Songs like "This Piece" and "Breakwater" are representative of the kind of sweet flow of this album at its best, while Blumm's own occasional vocals add a deeper, calm counterpoint to Bobby's singing that's quite attractive. If nothing on the album leaps out as a key highlight, the whole is an enjoyable listen, and if it's not a must-listen it's definitely a cut above a lot that's out there at present. ~ Ned Raggett