Album Review : ceo - White Magic
- Written by Greg Salter
It’s become something of a cliché to talk about Sweden as a country that seems predisposed to producing good pop music, particularly over the past half decade. However, it’s worth taking a step back and reflecting on just how wonderfully odd the music that these very singular artists have been offering is – the haunted, pitch-shifting of The Knife’s Silent Shout, and Fever Ray’s warped domesticity last year; Robyn’s globe-trotting, cherry-picking pop songs continue to make her an unlikely star; The Tallest Man On Earth’s folk songs, seemingly removed from any specific time or place. There’s also The Tough Alliance - the duo of Henning Fürst and Eric Berglund whose Balaeric-infused pop music soundtracked lip-synched live shows where the pair threw themselves around the stage, wielded baseball bats and, occasionally, slow danced with each other.
ceo is Erik Berglund’s new musical guise, which could be considered a side project if anyone knew whether The Tough Alliance were going to make another record, and it feels very much like an extension of his previous band’s sound. The songs on debut album White Magic are instantly appealing – Balaeric beats, orchestral touches, disco, modern r’n’b, reggae, samples and live instrumentation are all combined in this bright, sweet collection of songs in a manner that will be familiar to any fans of The Tough Alliance. As ever, it’s unashamedly pop, to the point where it may be just too sugary for many people but, as with Robyn, instant appeal does not necessarily diminish with repeated plays.
The unease that lurked below the bright surfaces of The Tough Alliance’s music is replicated on White Magic (melancholy has always had its place firmly at the centre of popular music, let’s face it) and Berglund adds another pop trope to the mix with ceo – escapism. Lead single ‘Come With Me’ is a case in point – Berglund invites to the reality inside his head in his familiar sing-song voice, ominously asking whether we’d “sacrifice this life to make it real”. His reality remains as inscrutable as ever – you only need to take a look at the video’s weird mix of camp and childlike imagery, or the nonsensical press material – “ceo arises in 1981 and 1891. in 3064 and tomorrow. after ibrahimovic and before nectanebo II”.
Berglund is an expert in obscuring the direct nature of his songs with a certain amount of smoke and mirrors. Though not particularly new, it’s similar to the way Lady Gaga dresses up her songs, though while she craves fame and bad romances, ceo, seemingly, is all about happiness and true love. ‘Oh God Oh Dear’ sways contentedly, while title track ‘White Magic’ effortlessly toes the line between the club and the imagination, spinning in a whirl of samples and beats.
A darkness remains however - ‘No Mercy’ combines Spanish guitars and the sound of swords of being sharpened to document a twisted kind of submissive love, and ‘Love and Do What You Will’ has similar connotations. As ever, sweetness and optimism aren’t what they appear on the surface - every glimpse of light is countered with a hint of darkness. Overall, White Magic feels like another fascinating, weirdly irresistible collection of pop songs from Berglund. If ceo really is everything he’s claimed it to be, it’s also a heady mix of the straightforward and the subversive – a lot of the appeal is winding your way through these twisted mazes he’s created in and around his eclectic, instantly likeable music.