Few things give me as much pleasure as thumbing my way through old cookery books and marveling at the photos of the food. There’s something about a vividly printed image of a tray of vol-au-vents from the 70s, or a plate of fondant fancies from 1983 that just ticks all the boxes. Anyway, the point I’m not really making is that I was always going to be drawn in by the image that accompanies All the People. What I really didn’t expect though, was a four-and-a-half-minute sprawling groove that comes across kind of like LCD Soundsystem playing Can.

SOUP! are an intriguing duo consisting of producer Gigi Piscitelli and drummer Matt Hardy. Both highly accomplished in their own fields – Piscitelli has worked alongside Alan Moulder, Flood, and engineered for the likes of East India Youth, The Charlatans, and Ibibio Sound Machine, whereas Hardy is a young veteran of the British contemporary indie-folk scene – the two have joined forces to explore the outer reaches of pop. Made in collaboration with London producer LApo, All the People represents not only their first release under the SOUP! banner, but also serves as a kind of experimental mission statement.

It’s a propulsive beast of a mission statement too. Opening with several bars of spliced cymbals and sporadic synth chords, the snare soon kicks in and ushers with it a groove that doesn’t let up for the remainder of the 4:36 run-time. It’s one of those tracks that you get swept up and lost in, such is the sense of constant movement. Among other things, the band are influenced by Talking Heads and Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack, and you can pick up on both here – particularly the former. There’s very much a Speaking in Tongues polyrhythmic vibe to the track, and a worldly feel to some of the instrumentation too. Synths come and go; almost pulling against eachother as they move around in the mix, and soon chopped-up vocal samples add a further unexpected flavour to proceedings. By the time it’s in full flow, it has to be said that there’s something more than a little ritualistic about it. Before you know it though, the trance is broken and the track neatly rides out on chopped-up dialogue and the loop that opened it.

Much like the aforementioned Can, SOUP! build their music by recording extended jams which are then edited down into concentrated pieces. Anybody can do it, but it takes real skill to make something that bears repeated listening. There’s something really fresh about the sound of All the People that really grabbed me on the first play, and it’s still doing something after a dozen or so more. I’m really interested to see where Piscitelli and Hardy go next, because this is a great introduction.

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* This track was discovered via Musosoup. A small fee was paid in exchange for publication. See ‘About / Contact’ page for more details.