"When the lights are dimmed and the mood is one
of quiet relaxation there can be no finer company than the smooth and delicate
piano style of Rene Armand especially when he himself is in the company of the
World of Strings". That's what it says on the back anyway, and that cover
is certainly aiming at a degree of classy swish and a quiet night in; evening
dress and tuxedo, cocktails and strings, flock wallpaper by the yard - it's got
it all, and this album is presumably meant to be the missing piece of the jigsaw
for an evening of sublime sophistication.
The problem is, however, that 'Rene' and his piano
and 'Carlini' and his strings are not exactly reading from the same page. Or
even reading from the same book to be honest; instead of the promised 'smooth
and delicate' background sounds, the two battle each other in a duel to the
death with the poor listener as the real victim. Because instead of seeking any
kind of harmonious hook-up, Carlini revs up those strings till they boom with an
overcooked sturm und drang while Rene pounds the keys like an avant garde jazzer
wired to the mains, never playing one note where five will do. Frankly, it's an
awful, Wagner in a teacup type racket and something that's completely at odds
with what is meant to be on offer here. That's not to say it's death metal
levels of loud and raucousness, because it's
not, but my point is that death metal is meant to be loud and raucous
and so anything less than that would be a disappointment for its fans. For an
album selling itself as sophisticated easy listening, the bar at where 'easy'
becomes 'rather less than easy' is set pretty low, and 'Cocktail Piano' clears
it with room to spare.
A word too about some of the arrangements on this -
as the label is 'Stereo Gold Award', we're back in cheeky L Muller territory.
And sure enough, his name crops up on the label as a chief arranger. Presumably
because he's still alive and can afford good lawyers, Muller leaves the Jimmy
Webb stuff alone, but reading 'Tchaikovsky arr. L Muller' can either raise a
smirk or a snort of derision depending on your viewpoint and/or general mood.
That's one thing, but then reading the 'Mozart arr. J Last' credit (to the
'Theme From Elvira Madigan'), just smacks of a lazy, can't even be arsed-ness.
Which is probably fitting in the circumstances - I'm finding it hard to believe
that these tunes were recorded specifically for this project and this record
feels instead like it's populated by the hastily cobbled together offcuts of
other projects clumsily packaged as something it's clearly not. Maybe that's why the woman on the
cover looks like she's having a glass of stale piss wafted under her nose; if
this album is playing in the background, then she may as well
be.
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