Shelter starts with Marisija’s shy vocals, then the first patches of the guitar and synthesizer appear. The track gains momentum and breadth, the harmonising vocals set in, with percussion bridging the the whole.
When they perform, Marisija is always up front, Tomasz Ziętek shifting into the background. While pastel electronics are predominant in their music, acoustic instruments provide several layers of texture in drums, bass and Ziętek’s trumpet.
Loco Star’s idea for music may be characterized as exhibiting: attention to sound, careful processing of tones so that there is no room for boredom, and all of this in the framework of enclosed, song-like forms. Their arrangements are by no means blowsy, they don’t contain improvisation – even the 7-minute Orla isn’t a mapless trip into the unknown, it's more of a weekend course in building musical pyramids. The clarity of the structures and the lightness of the narration are enthralling.
An appealing contrast binds the nice, tender, "sexy" music and the texts, which encourage the listeners to live and to be active. "Come on, won’t you lose your head" is the opposite of "living antisocial (…) watching, no touching" in TV Head. "If you know what’s going to happen / then you know it will be just fine (…) don’t wait, don’t hesitate" is one line from the wise song Orla. Combined with the music these words seem to be a delicate alarm clock. Loco Star doesn’t want to rule their listeners. Their songs emanate happiness - but not the conviction that they have a recipe for happiness.
The album's sound is complemented by cover art designed by Marisija and Ziętek together with Jacek Frąś, formerly of Cool Kids of Death. A simple carton with the title of the album cut out from it contains another box, which encases, apart from the record itself, ten Polaroids with lyrics printed verso, which is always a nice bonus for buyers of CDs in these digital times.
Author: Jacek Świąder. Translated by Marek Kępa. Edited by Agnieszka Le Nart
Loco Star - Shelter - label: Kayax