"Tonight I Need" - Olivier Rocabois & John Howard
Some songs just flow like a water over rocks. A sensual and exquisite experience that soothes
One such confection is the delightfully plaintive "Tonight I Need" a piece that glides and drifts like the fragments of a forgotten sonata.
French singer-songwriter Olivier Rocabois has an anglophile pop heart.
Honest and plaintive his work beguiles, creating touches of gentle reassurance for the soul.
Rising like a choral incantation there is an abundance of mastery of song-craft at work here.
From the simple piano motif it builds to a Left Banke slice of tender haunting chamber pop with touches of early solo Paul McCartney.
There are also Beatles traces in the harmony vocals in which he is deftly assisted by that English maestro of the tinkled ivories, John Howard.
A well kept, but gradually breaking UK secret who now resides in Spain
Their voices blend and meld like strawberries and cream on a summer's day.
Confident yet fragile it evokes "She's Leaving Home" by the Fab Four and The Beckies lost gem of a 45 "River Bayou."
It also has the haunted fragility of Bill Fay in its tone and timbre.
Darkness drifting into sunlight.
Three mere minutes that grow in majesty and grace the more times one listens.
Tonight I need
Someone to help me
Somebody's shoulder to cry on.
Sometimes I need
A mate of mine
Who could listen to my stories.
Oh the fake ones, the real ones.
We just want to talk about
Our lives and the wonders we long for.
Deliciously English but utterly European, the softly sonorous sixties vibe suggests Bowie in his early days perfections before his seventies' fame came a calling.
A perfect trailer for the forthcoming album Olivier Rocabois Goes Too Far, this single is a telling introduction to a unique presence.
His back catalogue deserves a backwards glance for other treasures.
On the strength of this he is a man who still has so much further to go.
Classy, reassured, but never showy,
Rocabois wears his influences discreetly well, a hint perhaps in a upturned sleeve.
He never falls foul of them.
They merely are the springboard from which to arc a promise of greater things.