Belleruche - Turntable Soul Music

Even those ones who are familiar with Tru Thoughts label and their music, couldn’t have really meet with the band of Belleruche around them before. Their music is that sort of „hip-hop blues soul, like Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Christian and Cut Chemist stuck in a dusty second hand record store with wine and a sampler”. I would add Herbaliser to this list for the dynamism, however, the tree members of Belleruche – performing vocal, guitar and turntables - don’t operate with funk. Despite of that, Minor Swing and Bird Mess wouldn’t stand out of line at any hip-hop party by all means.

Are you Portishead in disguise?

Comparisons to Portishead are somewhat inevitable - even the sticker on the front advises us to think of Belleruche as "Portishead for the 21st Century". The main point of comparison has to be Kathrin deBoer's voice, which is so similar in style and tone to Beth Gibbons that were this to come on in a bar, anyone would be forgiven for thinking it really was Portishead. Despite never reaching the depth and emotion of Gibbon's voice, the vocal is a strong point.

Stylistically there are a couple of trip-hop tracks which only further the comparison, but influences beyond South West England circa 1994 can also be found here. Blues, jazz, soul, lounge and funk also feature heavily, providing a nice mix of styles that still sit together well as an album. The production is raw and, on occasion, stripped down, giving an almost "one take" or live sense to certain tracks. This all helps lend the smokey jazz club feel that the promotional blurb tells us Belleruche aspire to.

If you love Portishead, Lamb, Alice Russell, or even the great female soul voices, you will probably rate this as highly as I do.