Old-fashioned Romantic
A return to the art of slow seduction.
Lounge today is too often reduced to harmless background noise for hotels and lifts. Old-fashioned Romantic is firmly against that. This is music that asks you to sit up straight, pour something amber into a glass, and listen — without scrolling.
The record reaches back to the golden age of instrumental soul and light orchestral funk: you can clearly hear the lessons of Eumir Deodato (his knack for turning classical themes into jazz-funk landscapes) and the epic sense of drama from Isaac Hayes's Hot Buttered Soul era. But instead of copying, the author uses these influences as building blocks for a more chamber-scale aesthetic of his own.
The standout is «Autumn, oddly enough». Strangely, there are no direct sounds of falling leaves or rain. Instead — soft strings, the wet vibration of flugelhorn, and rare piano touches falling like drops of an expensive perfume. The title plays ironically with our expectation of «autumnal melancholy» — the music turns out warmer and cosier than its label promises. No shouty samples; just warm analog synths and arrangements that breathe with space.
Old-fashioned Romantic is music for slow dances on the kitchen floor at three in the morning, for thick-paper envelopes and fountain pens. If modern romance is a right-swipe, this is a long look across a restaurant.
The album's weakness is its cosy safety. At times the record slides toward too-smooth «shopping music», especially in its second half. But just when it threatens to become saccharine, a slight dissonance appears in the strings — and the magic returns.
The perfect soundtrack for an evening with an antique lamp and a Nabokov novel. Deodato and Hayes would approve.