Wax Tailor - Hope & Sorrow

French “cinematic hip-hop” producer Wax Tailor has been making beats since the early ‘90s, but I have to say this is the first time I’ve come across him. Hope & Sorrow was originally released in Apri 2007, but it’s only know that it’s been given a full release in the UK. More’s the pity – as it’s a damn fine piece of work.
 
The spooky Wild West guitars of Portishead shimmer over the languid beats of Once Upon A Past at the start of the album, easing us into Tailor’s filmic, atmospheric stylings. The Way We Live is genius – the wonderful Sharon Jones doing her best Shirley Bassey over a bossa nova meets classic French movie soundtrack backing, while The Games You Play treads Black Grass style territory, combining a vintage, playful flute hook with deep, sustained bass notes and lazy hip-hop beats. Voice spits cool lyrics in her smooth feminine tones over the top: “I keep pretending / That I’m flexible so you think your will’s got me bending”
 
Positively Inclined shows Wax Tailor’s skill for incorporating orchestral instruments again, lacing Marina Quaisse and A.S.M.’s flows with oboe punctuation, and Sometimes takes an innovative, echoed/delayed beat and hammers it under more delicate flute playing, slow scratching and laidback guitar plucks.
 
Ursula Rucker isn’t to everyone’s tastes but her performance on We Be is more gentle than her occasionally abrasive style. Kind of in the vein of her Will Saul collaboration Where Is It?, her wise tones echoing over the warm, slumberous trip-hop style beats. Alien In My Belly finishes things off in style, alluding very clearly to Depeche Mode and Portishead – but let’s call it a tribute rather than a pastiche. Seeing as Portishead aren’t making stuff quite like they used to anymore (and with good reason), it’s quite a worthy effort...all shuddering, paranoid violins, echoing snares and Charlotte Savary doing a slightly less tortured and more honeyed Beth Gibbons impression.
 
This is a fantastic album – accomplished, varied, wonderfully produced, and with a superb array of guest vocalists who impress throughout. If you like Nightmares On Wax, Aim, or like the idea of trip-hop but find it too gloomy, this will become a firm favourite.