Compact DISCovery
Compact DISCovery
Jaimie Vernon
LAURIE BIAGINI
Go Go Girl In A Modern World
Independent
Each new Laurie Biagini release is met with Christmas Day anticipation. Especially if you like Christmas on the sun-soaked, sand-filled beaches of Santa Monica in July. Her last album, ‘A Far Out Place’, married the groovy harmony and musical stylings of The Beach Boys and other California surf artists from a female perspective. ‘Go Go Girl in a Modern World’ takes the next leap with a broader range of 1960s authentic sounding AM power pop.
Taken at face value it seems a rather odd musical marriage coming from an exotic Italian musician from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. But when you hear the craftsmanship in the songs, you’d swear Biagini grew up on Venice Beach and spends her days, the breeze whipping through her hair, riding the Pacific Coast Highway in her car. In fact, the song “My Little SUV” gives us a modern re-tooling of classic car songs like “Little GTO” and “Little Honda”. You just want to ride along as she throws her cares to the wind.
The title track, “Go Go Girl in a Modern World”, is self-referential in that Biagini knows she’s out of step with current musical trends. Nowhere else are you going to find tips of the hat to The Ad Libs’ and the Mamas & Papas in one song – “I Ride on the Train” successfully melds the groove of “Boy From New York City” with M & P’s “Creeque Alley”. She also tips her hat to both Mamas & Papas and Lovin’ Spoonful on the baroque shuffle of “Summertime”.
Bigiani has a sweet pure pop vocal delivery somewhere between Karen Carpenter and Susan Jacks which fits effortlessly with the early-60’s Spectorish girl group motifs on “An Innocent Love” and “In the Eyes of a Little Girl” (co-written with Liverpudlian songstress Maxi Dunn); late ‘60s Seekers/Poppy Family sunshine pop on “The Heart of the Song”, “Chameleon Man” and “No Other Like You”; and even the Pacific Northwest psyche-garage sounds of “Head In the Sand”.
Clincher track on the CD is the Johnny Rivers-meets-James Bond “Invisible Guy” which finds equal parts surf guitar riff married to Herb Alpert brass lines. It’s catchy as hell and should be put to good use as the soundtrack to any number of ‘spy’ related television or movies projects. I’d suggest ‘Chuck’ for starters.
Aside from the strength of her songwriting pastiches and vocal talents, Biagini is the master of every organic instrument on the album: keyboards, electric guitar, and percussion. Cleverly, she taps many of her music friends (Maxi Dunn, Peter Hackett, Fabrizio Serrechia and Richard Snow Hattersley) – using digital technology to fly the tracks around the world – and has them contribute via virtual recording techniques; Proving that you can capture the magic of a bygone era without compromising the spirit of it in a digital setting. I’d say they don’t make albums like this anymore, but Biagini does.
