By Ljubinko Zivkovic, Rock At Night Amsterdam
Review: Black Market Karma’s album Aped Flair and Hijacked Ideas-Release date: September 29, 2022 via Flower Power Records
It seems that power pop band have a knack for coming up with cool album title ideas. Of course, along for the better part of them, coming up with some cool music to match.
UK’s Black Market Karma seem to like their power pop on the psychedelic side of things, which can be a tricky thing to do if you are only finding your way around, but after ten albums behind their belt BMK seem to have honed their craft almost to perfection, as their psych-infused sounds that draw a line from The Velvet Underground, through Jesus And Mary Chain, to more current exponents like Spiritualized and the Brian Jonestown Massacre are their best here.
The key with the BMK’s sound is that instead of elongated song structures, they prefer to keep their sound within a melody line, relatively short, but certainly sweet. Maybe that has something to do with the band’s move from London to the South Coast of England, but whatever it is, Stanley Belton, BMK’s mastermind and his crew seem to be at the height of their musical powers.
Talking about the albums title, Belton says, “The album’s title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the idea that nothing is truly original. Influence is an infinite web connecting all art and I think that’s a beautiful thing that should be embraced. I often see people getting too hung up on the pursuit of some kind of idea of total originality that doesn’t exist. It’s all in the blend.”
With or without influences, ‘Aped Flair and Hijacked Ideas’ works, wherever the ideas came from.
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