I lost a boyfriend to Australia. It's the saddest story so I'm not going to ruin this review of a surprisingly optimistic album by telling it. But still, I can't watch Heartbreak High without shedding a tear. I was deep in sentimental turmoil when I received this album and after reading the bio, telling us reviewers that this was made by Australians, I decided that maybe it was not the right time to listen to it. 

A few days ago, during my yearly two days break, I decided that I owed it to Staubgold -mainly because of that Ekkehard Ehlers Plays John Cassavetes 12"- and I listened to the cd. And it felt nice. Sun is a two cds set. One cd filled with Sun, by Sun, and a remix cd. Sun was a good choice for their name, since it will obviously prevent most reviewers from using "sunny" as an adjective to describe their music. Well. It sounds sunny. Lazy pop with a good, soft voice and a drop of psychedelia. It kinda sounds like summer. It starts with the kind of things you want to listen to when you wake up at 1 pm and there's nothing to make you feel guilty about waking up so damn late. It starts like that and ends with great summer nights music that make you want to stay up really late and you do it, because nothing prevents you from doing it. Yet, even though these purely fictional brackets seem to indicate that a whole day has passed between "Make It" and "It's not Real", you would be foolish to think so. Excepted if for you a whole day consists in waking up late, lingering in bed for a good hour, getting up to sit next to the swimming pool, drinking fresh caïpirinhas, swimming gently for a quarter of an hour and then going back to bed. 

The first cd is nice and agreeable yet it would be a bit inconsequential if it weren't for its cd case mate, the remix cd. Every track of the album was remixed by a knob twiddler and the remixes were listed following the original running order. And even though it's nothing surprising, really, considering that this is a Staubgold record, I was surprised to aknoledge that, yes, I liked the remix cd better than the original, even though I wouldn't have liked it as much if i hadn't listened to the original versions. The main reason why this remix cd is great is because the remixes were made with a deep respect of the original versions, something that usually lacks in the remix world, and consequently makes so many b-sides totally useless. The artists who remixed Sun did more than keeping the spirit of the record alive, they sublimed it. 

I realized that when I listened to Pluramon's remix of "Reach for the Sky". You can laugh at his name, but Pluramon, whoever he may be, turned a slow pop song into a dreamy Manitoba-esque shoegazing hit. While Pimmon's remix of "Leave It on Its Own" is more conventional, Tom Recchion's remix of "Moon" is more challenging. It starts easily and then turns into a knee-deep dub pond and then changes again, and again and again, trying to explore all the moods and possibilities offered by the "raw" material. Rafael Toral's remix of "Letter to an Old Dog" sticks closer to the original and Hrvatski's "Sleepin'" sounds tamer than his own compositions while still sharing the wild, tricky inventivity that can be found in his various projects. Norbert Nöslang sounds like he's into drones and there's nothing wrong with that. His mechanic crickets bleep through the song in a cute "we're made of 1 and 0s but we still have our own cricket souls" way. Christoph Heemann stretches "It's not Real", subliming its intricate laziness.

Even though I'm still mad at Australia for taking my love away, Sun allows me to enjoy the remnant days of Summer every time I listen to it. Have a nice day.

-Barbara H

/sept 15th 2003/